Infection and Immunity

As of Monday, 8 November, Australians over 18 who have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine at least six months ago, are now eligible for a third dose.So why do we need booster shots? What does it mean for Australia as we transition to living with the virus? And when should we be rolling up our sleeves for our next dose?To learn more about the latest evidence around COVID-19 vaccine boosters, I am speaking with Professor Dale Godfrey, Immunology Theme Leader at the Doherty Institute.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COVID-19 research has come a long way since the beginning of 2020, but what initial steps where taken to prepare for the emergence of this new virus? In late January 2020, the team in the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) announced they had grown the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the first Australian COVID-19 patient sample in cell culture. They were the first laboratory to do so outside of China and the first to share it with the world. In this episode, you'll discover how the team grew the virus, what led them to this moment and why it was an important catalyst for further research, preparedness and diagnostics, including that three letter initialism we've become so familiar with, PCR.To talk us through it, our guest for this episode is Dr Mike Catton. Mike is the Deputy Director of the Doherty Institute and Director of the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s VIDRL, where he has been at the helm for more than 20 years. Aside from leading Victoria’s COVID-19 diagnostics capabilities over the last 20 months or so, Mike has many achievements under his belt. These include leading a collaborative effort to establish lab capacity for Australian back in 2003 for the original SARS; discovering a new arenavirus as the cause of a cluster of deaths among Victorian transplant patients in 2007, and being instrumental in the establishment of the Doherty Institute in 2014.Show notes:You can also read this story, , in our 2020 Impact Report.Growing and sharing the virus that changed the worldABC exclusive story we referenced in the episode.Watch the press conference Mike appeared in.Learn more about the arenavirus outbreak Mike's team discovered in this episode of ABC Radio National's Patient Zero.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In late September, we held an event online called COVID-19 vaccines – your questions answered Part 2with the aim of getting our experts to answer as many questions about COVID-19 vaccines from the audience as possible within an hour and a half. As with our first event of the same name back in March, we couldn’t get through all of them, so we’re bringing you this bonus episode of the podcast to answer a few more., We were overwhelmed with questions about vaccines and kids, so in this bonus episode we welcome back to the podcast Associate Professor Margie Danchin, who was one of our panellists.Margie is a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital and an Associate Professor and Clinician Scientist at the University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. As leader of the Vaccine Uptake Group, her research focuses mainly on vaccine confidence, acceptance, and uptake, particularly among high risk-groups and in low and middle-income countries.To find out more about the work taking place at the Doherty Institute, subscribe to our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you wondered what it must be like working on the frontline in Victoria's COVID wards during the pandemic?In this episode of , we're taken on that journey behind the scenes with Associate Professor Steve Tong and Dr Janine Trevillyan, two very hard-working infectious diseases physicians treating patients in COVID wards at two of our busiest hospitals in Victoria – the Royal Melbourne and the Austin.Infection and Immunity - Evidence ExplainedAssociate Professor Steven Tongis an Infectious Diseases Physician at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Co-Lead of the Clinical Research Discipline at the Doherty Institute. He is also Lead Investigator of the AustralaSian COVID-19 Trial, or ASCOT, as it’s more commonly known.Dr Janine Trevillyanis the Clinical Lead of Austin Health's COVID-19 Vaccination Program. She is also Head of Clinical Virology and HIV Services at Austin Health and an Infectious Diseases Physician at that hospital.Read Associate Professor Steve Tong's Twitter thread and opinion piece for Fairfax Media on his experience working in the COVID wards at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. Hear more from Associate Professor Steve Tong in our previous episode, .COVID-19 treatments part 1 - The Australian experienceTo find out more about the work taking place at the Doherty Institute, subscribe to our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Following the release of the Technical Report and Addendum to National Cabinet on 10 August, the Doherty Institute-led modelling consortium was asked to provide “sensitivity analyses” of the scenarios represented in the Report. They were asked to test the robustness of the recommendation to transition to Phases B and C of the Plan at 70 per cent and 80 per cent vaccination coverage if COVID-19 infection was already established in the community. Dr Chris Baker is a member of the modelling consortium, a research fellow in the School of Mathematics and Statistics and also works in the Centre for Data Science and Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis all at the University of Melbourne. He's here to breakdown what it all means.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australians are now coming out in droves to get their COVID-19 vaccines as we strive towards the double dose targets that will allow us more freedoms according to the National Plan to transition Australia’s National COVID Response.This is supported by new research conducted in July as part of the Optimise Study, which found that more than 86 per cent of Victorians who were part of the study are now definitely intending to be vaccinated or are already vaccinated. This is compared to November 2020 when just 61% of the cohort indicated their intention to get vaccinated.For this episode of our series all about COVID-19 – the virus, variants and vaccines, we're joined by Chief Investigators for the Optimise Study, Professor Margaret Hellard and Dr Katherine Gibney.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity developed by the United Nations Development Programme has Australia on par with high income countries, with 56.35 per cent of people having received a first dose. But what about low income countries? Just 2.14 per cent have received a first dose. That’s right – 2.14 per cent.In this episode Professor Kanta Subbarao joins us to help break down this issue. Kanta is the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza at the Doherty Institute. A virologist and physician, prior to her role at the Doherty Institute, she was at the helm of the Emerging Respiratory Viruses Section of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in the United States, where she worked on the original SARS coronavirus and later, MERS.To find out more about the work taking place at the Doherty Institute, subscribe to our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The use of antigen tests has been publicly debated since the beginning of the pandemic. But what is the latest official advise for their use in Australia?In this episode in our series on COVID-19 the virus, variants and vaccines we are chatting with Professor Deborah Williamson, Clinical Microbiologist, Deputy Director of the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory at the Doherty Institute and Director of The Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Department of Microbiology.Deborah has played a major role in Victoria’s Innovative Testing Program, a partnership between the Victorian Government Department of Health and the Doherty Institute. Her team performed the first pilot study of rapid antigen tests in a low prevalence settings across three Melbourne hospitals last year, looking at the sensitivity and specificity of the tests.To find out more about the work taking place at the Doherty Institute, subscribe to our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, Doherty Institute Director of Epidemiology, Professor Jodie McVernon joined Prime Minister Scott Morrison in presenting the modelling that underpinned the phases of the Federal Government's COVID Response Plan.Since the beginning of 2020 Jodie has been advising the Commonwealth Government with a team of gun modellers from around the country on emerging evidence, and pulling together modelling looking at the impact of COVID-19 transmission and vaccines, test, trace, isolate, quarantine or TTIQ public health measures and health system preparedness.Here she breaks down some of the figures presented to the Government and responds to some criticism of her team's report.We want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We welcome back the Patron and Namesake of the Doherty Institute, Laureate Professor Peter Doherty. It’s been a big week for Peter with the launch of his seventh lay book, , published by Melbourne University Press. As the title suggests, Peter recounts his experience and inner workings of the Doherty Institute throughout the first year of COVID-19. In addition, it’s a compilation of his weekly columns he wrote for the Doherty Institute website up to edition 42.An Insider’s Plague YearSetting it StraightWe want to hear from you! Help us shape future episodes of our podcast by telling us a little about yourself, how you listen to and what you'd like to hear more of in 2022. The survey is anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.Infection and Immunity – Evidence ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.