Good News

Welcome to Meru Sheel and Sam Colquhoun who have just joined the IDEM group.  Meru is a former MAE scholar, who will work on national and international response to infectious disease outbreaks. Sam joins us with 20 years’ experience in international health and development working with government and non-government organisations, academic institutions and donor organisations.  She will be working on two projects: (1) epidemic responses with an NHMRC CRE into infectious diseases, and (2) an ACIAR grant “Stunting and gastrointestinal infections in infants in Timor-Leste: a pilot study”, led by Ben Polkinghorne.

Conferences, Workshops and Seminars

The IDEM team hosted a visit from Dr Eva Moller Nielson who heads the Foodborne Infections unit at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.  Eva gave us a talk on whole genome sequencing of Campylobacter jejuni, which was highly relevant to our current partnership grant on Campylobacter.

Danielle Ingle presented at the Young COMPARE conference, receiving best talk for "Co-circulation of multidrug-resistant Shigella among men who have sex with men, Australia", and presented at the Mobile Genetic Elements conference, receiving runner up best ECR talk for "Characterisation of mobile elements in highly-resistant Australian Salmonella enterica serovar 4,[5],12:i:-".

Engagement and Outreach

Brett Lidbury will visit the Department of Health Evidence, Radboud UMC (Nijmegen, The Netherlands), between the 18^th March and 18^th June to complete systematic review projects funded by the Erasmus Mobility scheme.

Publications

• Ali SM, Anjum N, Ishaq M, Naureen F, Noor A, Rashid A, Abbas SM, Viney K. (2019) Community knowledge about tuberculosis and perception about tuberculosis associated stigma in Pakistan. Societies. 9(1): 9
• Arcos-Burgos M, Vélez JI, …, Lidbury B, …., Muenke M. (2019) ADGRL3 (LPHN3) variants predict substance use disorder. Transl Psychiatry. Jan 29;9(1):42. PubMed PMID: 30696812 doi:10.1038/s41398-019-0396-7.
• Barnes B, Scott A, Hernandez-Jover M, Toribio J-A, Moloney B, Glass K. (2019) Modelling high pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in the commercial poultry industry. Theoretical Population Biology (in press, accepted Feb 2019).
• Glass K, Barnes B, Scott A, Toribio J-A, Moloney B, Singh M, Hernandez-Jover M (2019) Modelling the impact of biosecurity practices on the risk of high pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in Australian commercial chicken farms.  Prev Vet Med (in press, accepted Feb 2019).
• Ingle DJ, Easton M, Valcanis M, Seemann T, Kwong JC, Stephens N, Carter GP, Gonçalves da Silva A, Adamopoulos J, Baines SL, Holt KE, Chow EPF, Fairley CK, Chen MY, Kirk M, Howden BP, Williamson DA. (2019) Co-circulation of multidrug-resistant Shigella among men who have sex with men, Australia. Clin Infect Dis. Jan 7. Ahead of print

• McLure A, Clements ACA, Kirk MD, Glass K (2019) Modelling diverse sources of Clostridium difficile in the community: importance of animals, infants and asymptomatic carriers. Epidemiol Infect (in press, accepted Feb 2019).
• Sheel M, Beard F, Quinn H, Dey A, Kirk M, Koehler A, Markey P, McIntyre P, Macartney K. (2018) Australian vaccine preventable disease epidemiological review series: varicella-zoster virus infections, 1998-2015. Commun Dis Intell. 2018;42.
• Viney K, Mills T, Harley D. Tuberculosis and diabetes-mellitus: A dose-response relationship between the odds of tuberculosis and HbA1c. International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. (in press)
• White AE, Ciampa N, Chen Y, Kirk M, Nesbitt A, Bruce BB, Walter ES. (2019) Characteristics of Campylobacter, Salmonella Infections and Acute Gastroenteritis in Older Adults in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Clin Infect Dis. Jan 2. Ahead of print