Immunisations are one of the world’s greatest public health interventions, and also one of the areas of medicine increasingly susceptible to misinformation. Independent, evidence-based scientific advice to governments and the community is crucial in informing immunisation policy and appropriate utilisation and uptake of safe and effective vaccines.
The Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, a 100-year-old vaccine usually given to protect against tuberculosis, also has ‘off-target’ effects on the immune system that protect against other infections and allergic diseases.
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?
Tuberculosis is a major cause of child morbidity and mortality globally. Young children are at particular risk of severe and disseminated disease following exposure to a person with tuberculosis. Public health and clinical services, including in Victoria, focus on early detection and treatment of both disease and infection. There have been recent developments that potentially strengthen and decentralise services for tuberculosis.
The effect of epidemics on pregnant women and newborns has often been neglected, so what do we know about the effects of COVID-19 in pregnancy and newborns?
As vaccines and other treatments are developed, should pregnant women also be included in clinical trials?
In low- and middle-income countries, disruption of essential maternity and newborn services may erode many of the gains made in maternal and child health over the past two decades.
The exit strategy for COVID-19 is a vaccine. To stop this pandemic we may need to vaccinate a significant proportion of the entire global population of 7 billion people. Where are we up to with vaccine development? Who gets vaccinated? How to communicate the benefits of a novel, fast tracked vaccine when misinformation is already spreading.
COVID-19 is almost always a mild disease in children. Adults are much more likely to become very unwell or die than children. Why is this so?
Spleen Australia was established as the Spleen registry in 2003 by Denis Spelman and Penny Jones, from the Alfred Hospital. It is a registry and clinical service for people of all ages who do not have a functioning spleen, and aims to reduce the incidence of overwhelming sepsis.
Pneumonia is the commonest cause of childhood death throughout the world, especially in low and middle income countries. The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) has been available for 19 years, but there are still many outstanding issues in its use: how do we measure the impact of this vaccine when the causes of pneumonia are many; how do we monitor serotype replacement in the post-PCV era; how do we measure herd protection; and how many doses of the vaccine are really needed for optimal protection?
Vaccine safety and disease surveillance are keys to maintaining confidence in our national immunisation program and maximising the benefits high vaccine coverage can bring to reducing the devastation of infectious diseases in our communities. In Victoria, this effort is led by ‘SAEFVIC’ https://www.saefvic.org.au/.
