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Otitis media is very common in Aboriginal children in Western Australia and chronic ear disease causes major problems in speech and language development and education. Up until recently, most programmes dealing with the problem of OM have focused on clinical interventions rather than prevention. The Enhanced Prevention Working Group was established as part of the WA Child Ear Health Strategy (2017–2021). The Group has worked collaboratively to develop a set of recommendations for prevention of OM in Aboriginal children.
The production of functional antipneumococcal antibodies in otitisprone children demonstrates that they respond to the current pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)and are likely to respond to pneumolysin-based vaccines as effectively as healthy children.
Our findings are in line with a number of epidemiological studies which show a positive association between breastfeeding and OM in early childhood
Conserved vaccine candidate proteins from S.pneumoniae induce serum and salivary antibody responses in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children with history of OM
Identified dominant PCR-ribotypes common to geographically disparate Australian paediatric populations
Otitis media (OM) starts within weeks of birth in almost all Indigenous infants living in remote areas of the Northern Territory (NT).
We have demonstrated that a single dose of a closely related commensal can delay onset of NTHi otitis media in vivo
The most urgent areas appear to be to continue monitoring the emergence of novel otopathogens, and the need to develop prevention and preventative therapies
Presence of bacterial otopathogen in the middle ear during ventilation tube insertion was a predictor of children at-risk of repeat ventilation tube insertion
Treatment of chronic suppurative otitis media with topical antibiotics probably results in an increase in resolution of ear discharge compared with boric acid