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Ear Infections

Middle ear infections are one of the main reasons that children visit a GP, are prescribed antibiotics and need surgery. Aboriginal children are particularly susceptible and commonly suffer from hearing loss which can affect speech and learning.

First Nations Health and Equity

Aboriginal health is everyone's business. The needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and kids is integrated into all relevant areas of our work. Improving the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids and families is an overarching priority for every team at The Kids.

Otitis-prone children produce functional antibodies to pneumolysin and pneumococcal polysaccharides

The production of functional antipneumococcal antibodies in otitisprone children demonstrates that they respond to the current pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)and are likely to respond to pneumolysin-based vaccines as effectively as healthy children.

Protective benefit of predominant breastfeeding against otitis media may be limited to early childhood: results from a prospective birth cohort study

Our findings are in line with a number of epidemiological studies which show a positive association between breastfeeding and OM in early childhood

No evidence for impaired humoral immunity to pneumococcal proteins in Australian Aboriginal children with otitis media

Conserved vaccine candidate proteins from S.pneumoniae induce serum and salivary antibody responses in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children with history of OM

Geographic consistency in dominant, non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae genotypes colonising four distinct Australian paediatric groups: a cohort study

Identified dominant PCR-ribotypes common to geographically disparate Australian paediatric populations

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines PREVenar13 and SynflorIX in sequence or alone in high-risk indigenous infants (PREV-IX-COMBO)

Otitis media (OM) starts within weeks of birth in almost all Indigenous infants living in remote areas of the Northern Territory (NT).

Genetic and functional evidence for a role for SLC11A1 in susceptibility to otitis media in early childhood in a Western Australian population

Otitis media (OM) is a common disease in early childhood characterised by inflammation of the middle ear.

New findings in the pathogenesis of otitis media

This study was the first to concurrently identify middle ear pathogens in both bacterial biofilm and intracellularly in the middle ear mucosa of children and to identify extensive DNA stranding in the MEF from children with AOM

Genome-Wide Association Study to Identify the Genetic Determinants of Otitis Media Susceptibility in Childhood

We identified several novel candidate genes which warrant further analysis in cohorts matched more precisely for clinical phenotypes.