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Personal protective equipment is essential to protect healthcare workers when exposed to aerosol-generating procedures in patients with airborne respiratory pathogens.

As COVID-19 vaccinations rolled out globally from late 2020, rules and recommendations regarding vaccine use in pregnancy shifted rapidly. Pre-registration COVID-19 vaccine trials excluded those who were pregnant. Initial Australian medical advice did not routinely recommend COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy, due to limited safety data and little perceived risk of local transmission.

Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is crucial for optimizing antimicrobial use and restraining emergence of antimicrobial resistance. The overall increase in reported antibiotic allergies in children can pose a significant barrier to AMS, but its impact on clinical AMS care in children has not been addressed.

Community perception of vaccine safety influences vaccine uptake. Our objective was to assess current vaccine safety monitoring by examining factors that may influence the availability of post-vaccination survey data, and thereby the specificity and sensitivity of existing signal detection methods.

Gram-negative bloodstream infections are associated with significant morbidity and mortality in children. Increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is reported globally, yet efforts to track pediatric AMR at a national level over time are lacking.

Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) is the most common cause of sepsis, contributing to paediatric intensive care unit admission in Australia and New Zealand. While deep venous thrombosis (DVT) has been reported in children with invasive S. aureus infections, the actual frequency and possible effects of thrombosis on disease severity and outcome in paediatric SAB remain unknown. Moreover, guidance regarding imaging for paediatric SAB management are poorly defined. 

In mid-2018, the Australian childhood 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine schedule changed from 3+0 to 2+1, moving the third dose to 12 months of age, to address increasing breakthrough cases of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD), predominantly in children aged >12 months. This study assessed the impact of this change using national IPD surveillance data.

Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is an important and preventable cause of morbidity and mortality among children and young adults in low-income and middle-income countries, as well as among certain at-risk populations living in high-income countries. The 2012 World Heart Federation echocardiographic criteria provided a standardized approach for the identification of RHD and facilitated an improvement in early case detection.

Concerns regarding adverse events following immunisation are a barrier to vaccine uptake. Health professionals use vaccine safety surveillance systems (VSSSs) to monitor vaccines and inform the public of safety data. With little known about public attitudes, perceptions, and experiences with VSSS, we examined them in the context of COVID-19 vaccinations in Western Australia.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. RSV seasonality was disrupted by COVID-19-associated nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). We review RSV seasonality, molecular epidemiology, clinical manifestations, and community awareness to inform future prevention strategies.