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Contact us If you'd like to get in touch, please contact us by phone or email. Phone: 0400 450 240 Email: vtg@thekids.org.au Meningococcus (Neisseria

The Wesfarmers Centre is pleased to announce the successful applications for the 2017 Round 2 Wesfarmers Centre Seed Funding. The Wesfarmers Centre

Eight applicants were successful, and were awarded $15,000 each for activities supporting subsequent research grant applications.

In 2014, the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines & Infectious Diseases put out a first call for seed funding proposals.

Preventing over half of the world’s ear infections with a therapy such as Spritz-OM will significantly improve health and educational outcomes on a global scale.

Research

Households are known to be high-risk locations for the transmission of communicable diseases. Numerous modelling studies have demonstrated the important role of households in sustaining both communicable diseases outbreaks and endemic transmission, and as the focus for control efforts. However, these studies typically assume that households are associated with a single dwelling and have static membership.

Research

Parainfluenza viruses are significant contributors to childhood respiratory illness worldwide, although detailed epidemiological studies are lacking. Few recent Australian studies have investigated serotype-specific PIV epidemiology, and there is a paucity of southern hemisphere PIV reports. We report age-stratified PIV hospitalisation rates and a mathematical model of PIV seasonality and dynamics in Western Australia (WA).

Research

Adult pertussis vaccination is increasingly recommended to control pertussis in the community. However, there is little data on the duration and kinetics of immunity to pertussis boosters in adults. We compared IgG responses to vaccination with a tetanus, low-dose diphtheria, low-dose acellular pertussis (Tdap) booster at 1 week, 1 month and 1 year post-vaccination in whole-cell (wP)-primed Australian paediatric healthcare workers who had received an adult Tdap booster 5-12 years previously, to those who received their first Tdap booster.

Research

Recent vaccine mandates in Australia, as in other high income settings, have sought to change the behavior of parents, including those who would otherwise access nonmedical exemptions. Since 2014, Australian state governments have introduced and progressively tightened policies restricting the access of unvaccinated children to early education and child care.

People

Dr Janessa Pickering is a research microbiologist with expertise in the molecular diagnostics and host pathogen interactions of upper respiratory tract pathogens that cause disease in children.