The RCH, along with campus partners the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI) and The University of Melbourne, is committed to helping reducing child health inequities in Asia and the Pacific.
Protecting Fijian communities from scabies
A study led by RCH Infectious Diseases Physician Professor Andrew Steer has shown that the treatment of a whole community with ivermectin can virtually eliminate scabies.
Isolated communities treated with the drug saw a reduction in scabies prevalence by 94 per cent, and a reduction of skin sores by 67 per cent. This provides new hope in the fight to control this debilitating disease.
The study was conducted in Fiji as a collaborative effort between Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, the Kirby Institute at UNSW Australia and the Fiji Ministry of Health, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Scabies is a skin disease caused by a microscopic mite which affects over 100 million people globally, particularly children in disadvantaged countries. It causes extreme itchiness affecting sleep and standards of living, and the broken skin can lead to serious bacterial infection and cause potentially deadly diseases including rheumatic fever, rheumatic heart disease and chronic renal failure. In the Pacific Islands, including Fiji, scabies is one of the most serious health problems with one quarter of the population infected.
Dr Andrew Steer says that as one of the most neglected tropical diseases, scabies is an under-recognised cause of illness and economic burden in many developing countries.
“We need to find a safe, effective means of controlling scabies and skin sores in these countries because the terrible itching leads to infection of the skin by bacteria that can cause potentially deadly diseases of the kidneys, heart and bloodstream,” Dr Steer said.
International recognition for Professor Steve Graham
RCH paediatrician Professor Steve Graham has been awarded the Karel Styblo Public Health Prize by the International Union against Tuberculosis (TB) and Lung Disease, for his years of work on child TB prevention and treatment in Africa and the Asia-Pacific.
“This is an extremely prestigious international award that acknowledges individuals or groups that have made outstanding and sustained contributions to tuberculosis control,” said Dr Julian Kelly, acting Head of RCH General Medicine.
“Steve has been honoured in particular for his guidance of the WHO Road Map for Child TB. He has demonstrated leadership in putting childhood TB onto the global TB control agenda for the first time and was instrumental in developing the first child friendly fixed dose combination for the treatment of TB in children,” Dr Kelly said.
Professor Graham has also reviewed national TB control programs in many countries over the last decade, and conducted research into prevention of TB through contact screening and preventative treatment, and in the clinical and epidemiological aspects of TB in children.
His global work in child pneumonia, particularly HIV related pneumonia such as Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia led to the WHO guidelines for HIV exposed infants.
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