With no national standard, casually employed staff, a lack of PPE and a refusal to account for aerosol transmission, infections such as the one that prompted Perth’s lockdown will keep happening.
- Associate Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute
It could easily be another 12 months until Australians are fully vaccinated. While we’ve had great success fending off the coronavirus, our leaders need to work even more closely to prevail this year.
Victoria has achieved a remarkable thing. But the virus has not been eradicated. The question then becomes, how well can the state deal with new outbreaks?
How does Victoria’s response to a second COVID-19 wave compare internationally? Very favourably - only a handful of other jurisdictions have enjoyed anything like the same level of effectiveness.
Adults who had a low birthweight or were undernourished as young children are more likely to experience high blood pressure and obesity.
Recent polio outbreaks in Ukraine and Mali, caused by a vaccine-derived form of poliovirus, don’t mean the vaccine isn’t working. On the contrary, they are a reminder to keep up vaccination rates.
The federal government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook announcement this week to cut the foreign aid budget by a further A$3.7 billion over three years is unprecedented. The current government has…
Contemplating how Papua New Guinea (PNG) would deal with Ebola may not be that different from asking the same of Liberia 12 months ago. While PNG’s per capita gross national income (US$2,540 in 2013) is…
The US government has told a group of local health educators that it will no longer use immunisation programs as a cover for espionage. But the damage from previous such programs is difficult to undo…
Once again, a cataclysmic disaster has hit an Asian nation. But a well co-ordinated aid response mindful of lessons from other disasters could mean a faster recovery. Last Friday, Typhoon Haiyan (known…
As if the children of Syria had not suffered enough, the news of an outbreak of polio (poliomyelitis) signals that even more suffering lies ahead. The polio virus invades the nervous system and can kill…
Global health campaigner Bill Gates is in Sydney today to lobby prime minister Julia Gillard to spend more money on global health, particularly the fight against malaria and polio. But while money may…
The murder of nine female health workers involved in child immunisation on February 8 in Kano (the largest city in northern Nigeria) is a chilling reminder that saving children’s lives is not a goal shared…
Contact Michael for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
- Website
- X (formerly Twitter): @profmike
- Article Feed
- Joined
