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Research
Culturally supported health promotion to See, Treat, Prevent (SToP) skin infections in Aboriginal children living in the Kimberley region of Western Australia: a qualitative analysisWhile there are many skin infections, reducing the burden of scabies and impetigo for remote living Aboriginal people, particularly children remains challenging. Aboriginal children living in remote communities have experienced the highest reported rate of impetigo in the world and are 15 times more likely to be admitted to hospital with a skin infection compared to non-Aboriginal children.

News & Events
National guideline to tackle record rates of skin infectionResearchers have developed the first National Healthy Skin Guideline to address record rates of skin infections in Australia’s Indigenous communities.

News & Events
Major grant empowers community voices to drive reduction in skin infectionsAboriginal community members throughout the Kimberley will take a lead role in driving healthy skin messages within their own communities thanks to a major funding boost to The Kids Research Institute Australia’s SToP Trial.
Research
Hospital admissions for skin infections among Western Australian children and adolescents from 1996 to 2012Skin infections are a significant cause of severe disease, requiring hospitalization in Western Australian children, particularly with Aboriginal children
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Impact of an Ivermectin Mass Drug Administration on Scabies Prevalence in a Remote Australian Aboriginal Community.Scabies is endemic in many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, with 69% of infants infected in the first year of life.
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Scabies and impetigo in Timor-Leste: A school screening study in two districtsScabies and impetigo are common in Timor-Leste, with very high prevalence of scabies in the rural district of Ermera
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Clinic attendances during the first 12 months of life for Aboriginal children in five remote communities of northern AustraliaThe median number of presentations per child in the first year of life was 21 with multiple reasons for presentation.
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Swimming pools in remote Aboriginal communitiesProviding remote communities with access to chlorinated swimming pools has been considered as a possible strategy for reducing ear and skin infection rates...
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Molecular diagnosis of scabies using a novel probe-based polymerase chain reaction assay targeting high-copy number repetitive sequences in the sarcoptes scabiei genomeThe suboptimal sensitivity and specificity of available diagnostic methods for scabies hampers clinical management, trials of new therapies and epidemiologic studies. Additionally, parasitologic diagnosis by microscopic examination of skin scrapings requires sample collection with a sharp scalpel blade, causing discomfort to patients and difficulty in children. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based diagnostic assays, combined with non-invasive sampling methods, represent an attractive approach.
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Estimation of the force of infection and infectious period of skin sores in remote Australian communities using interval-censored dataPrevalence of impetigo (skin sores) remains high in remote Australian Aboriginal communities, Fiji, and other areas of socio-economic disadvantage. Skin sore infections, driven primarily in these settings by Group A Streptococcus (GAS) contribute substantially to the disease burden in these areas. Despite this, estimates for the force of infection, infectious period and basic reproductive ratio-all necessary for the construction of dynamic transmission models-have not been obtained.