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Group A Streptococcus (GAS) causes pharyngitis (sore throat) and impetigo (skin sores) GAS pharyngitis triggers rheumatic fever (RF) with epidemiological evidence supporting that GAS impetigo may also trigger RF in Australian Aboriginal children. Understanding the concurrent burden of these superficial GAS infections is critical to RF prevention. This pilot study aimed to trial tools for concurrent surveillance of sore throats and skins sore for contemporary studies of RF pathogenesis including development of a sore throat checklist for Aboriginal families and pharynx photography.
Pneumococcal disease (PD) remains a major health concern with considerable morbidity and mortality in children. Currently licensed pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) confer protection against PD caused by most vaccine serotypes, but non-vaccine serotypes contribute to residual disease. V114 is a 15-valent PCV containing all 13 serotypes in Prevnar 13™ (PCV13) and additional serotypes 22F and 33F. This pivotal phase 3 study compared safety and immunogenicity of V114 and PCV13.
Understanding immunity in humans to Group A Streptococcus (Strep A) is critical for the development of successful vaccines to prevent the morbidity and mortality attributed to Strep A infections. Despite decades of effort, no licensed vaccine against Strep A exists and immune correlates of protection are lacking; a major impediment to vaccine development.
Children with chronic medical conditions are at higher risk of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD), but little is known about the effectiveness of the primary course of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in these children.
Impetigo is a highly contagious bacterial infection of the superficial layer of skin. Impetigo is caused by group A Streptococcus (Strep A) and Staphylococcus aureus, alone or in combination, with the former predominating in many tropical climates. Strep A impetigo occurs mainly in early childhood, and the burden varies worldwide. It is an acute, self-limited disease, but many children experience frequent recurrences that make it a chronic illness in some endemic settings.
Group A Streptococcus causes a wide range of diseases from relatively mild infections including pharyngitis to more severe illnesses such as invasive diseases and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Our aim is to estimate the cost-effectiveness of a hypothetical Strep A vaccine on multiple disease manifestations at the global-level.
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is responsible for a significant burden of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and remains the most common cause of acquired heart disease among children and young adults in low-income and middle-income countries. Additionally, the global COVID-19 pandemic has forced the emergency restructuring of many health systems, which has had a broad impact on health in general, including cardiovascular disease.
This review aims to systematically identify contextual and mechanistic factors that contribute to the success or failure of implementing effective HCs in the prevention and early detection of chronic diseases among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australian primary health care (PHC).
Streptococcus dysgalactiae subspecies equisimilis and Streptococcus pyogenes share skin and throat niches with extensive genomic homology and horizontal gene transfer possibly underlying shared disease phenotypes.
Among genes present in all group A streptococci (GAS), those encoding M-fibril and T-pilus proteins display the highest levels of sequence diversity, giving rise to the two primary serological typing schemes historically used to define strain. A new genotyping scheme for the pilin adhesin and backbone genes is developed and, when combined with emm typing, provides an account of the global GAS strain population.