COVID-19

Measuring and moving on the child and youth mental healthcare system: Reflections from Canada

This session will describe a 10 year initiative to develop a data and evaluation platform for children and youth mental health and service delivery in Ontario, Canada’s largest province.  The session will touch on the advantages and limitations of using routinely collected health system data for surveillance and performance measurement, and challenges in evaluating a large, system wide policy strategy to improve early identification and coordination of care for children and youth with mental health disorders. 

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COVID-19: An Update: What have we learnt over the last 12 months?

Never in the field of health was so much learned by so many in so few months. This Grand Round will recap the lessons from last year, take stock of where we are in February 2022, describe the complex situation with vaccines, and look to what the year might hold for the pandemic and children in Australia and countries around the world. 

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The pathogens causing child pneumonia: An ever-changing spectrum

It is World Pneumonia Day on November 12th. Pneumonia remains a leading cause of death among young children despite the widespread introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common respiratory virus that may cause severe respiratory disease especially in infants. We will describe the findings of a systematic review, which was part of a series for WHO, which aimed to determine the common aetiology of severe and non-severe community acquired pneumonia among children 1 month to 9 years of age in low- and middle-income countries globally. We will also discuss the impact of the global pandemic on the epidemiology of respiratory infections with a focus on RSV.

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Covid-19 in India and South Africa – Back of the queue or leading the world?

“Vaccine inequity – The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure, and the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries.”    
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

The availability of effective vaccines for the prevention of covid-19 has led to an unseemly competition as countries rushed to sign deals with manufacturers, often outbidding each other for access, to the exclusion of poorer countries. In high income countries 60% of people have received at least one dose of Covid vaccine, while in low income countries the figure is 3%.

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Delta in Kids- what we do and don’t know

We have a National Roadmap, which includes COVID-19 vaccine coverage targets for the easing of restrictions.  But how do children and adolescents fit into this, with regard the direct and indirect effects of Delta on their health and well-being?

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Working together to optimise children’s mental health: The Campus Mental Health Strategy

Mental Health is an issue of growing concern across the community. This has been amplified through the COVID-19 pandemic. Child mental health is also an ongoing priority for the Melbourne Children’s Campus (MCC) and its three partners. The RCH treats many vulnerable patient groups (e.g., children with chronic illness, neurodevelopmental disorders, psychosocial challenges) with elevated risk of psychological and mental health difficulties. This extends across our inpatient and outpatient services and into the community. Despite this, mental health services can be fragmented and difficult to access. 

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The mental health of sick babies in hospital: Risks, vulnerabilities, and the impact of COVID-19

Hospitalisation for treatment of serious illness can place infants, and their families, at risk with respect to their mental health. Trauma responses are common, and optimal infant-parent relationship development may be disrupted. Significant additional environmental and psychosocial burdens were placed on this group in 2020 as a consequence of measures adopted to protect the community from COVID-19.

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COVID-19: An Update: What have we learnt over the last 12 months?

Never in the field of health was so much learned by so many in so few months.  This, the opening Grand Round for 2021 will recap the lessons from last year, take stock of where we are in February 2021, describe the complex situation with vaccines, and look to what the year might hold for the pandemic and children in Australia and countries around the world.  Topics will include: Why is COVID-19 less severe in children?  What is the role of schools in transmission and what is the impact of new variants?  Vaccines: who, when and how? The indirect effects of Covid: poverty and malnutrition, measles, loss of education, and child marriage.

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World Pneumonia Day: vaccines, oxygen therapy and the impact of Covid-19

It is World Pneumonia Day on November 12th.  Pneumonia and other acute lower respiratory infections remain the most common causes of childhood death, and illness requiring hospitalization globally. This is despite the effective pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) being widely available, which points to the varied causation of childhood pneumonia in 2020.

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