Australia saw its first case of monkeypox in May 2022, followed by declaration of monkeypox as a Communicable Disease Incident of National Significance. Vaccination continues to play an important role in the ongoing public health response, but has not been without its challenges. This webinar explored the Australian experience of introducing a new vaccine against an emerging disease within a global landscape of rapidly emerging evidence and vaccine supply constraints.

The webinar covers:

  • background on monkeypox virus
  • epidemiology internationally and in Australia, with a closer look at cluster events in Victoria
  • vaccines available, who should get them and where they can get them
  • considerations for affected communities in the vaccine program rollout
  • safety of monkeypox vaccines, including safety of intradermal administration. 

Presentation recordings:

  • Monkeypox disease and vaccines — Professor Kristine Macartney


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    Portrait of Professor Kristine MacartneyProfessor Kristine Macartney
    Director, NCIRS

    Kristine Macartney is a paediatrician, infectious disease specialist and vaccinologist. She worked in the USA at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and was a founding member of the US Vaccine Education Center.

    Kristine's particular interests include translation of evidence into policy and practice, vaccine safety and vaccine preventable diseases research, particularly in viral diseases, including COVID-19, rotavirus, varicella zoster virus, HPV and influenza. She is the senior editor of the Australian Immunisation Handbook, has authored >200 peer-reviewed publications and is a member of key peak advisory committees in Australia, including the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI).

    She is an expert consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), a member of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS), a member of WHO-SAGE subcommittees and is the founding chair of the Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance (ARIA).

    Kristine has a clinical appointment at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead as a Staff Specialist in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology and a conjoint academic appointment as Professor in the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health, University of Sydney.

  • Monkeypox: Victorian public health response — Associate Professor Deborah Friedman


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    Portrait of Associate Professor Deborah FriedmanAssociate Professor Deborah Friedman  
    Deputy Chief Health officer, Victoria

    Deborah Friedman has extensive clinical and academic expertise in infectious diseases. She is a medical doctor in infectious diseases with over 20 years of experience.

    She has expertise and a keen interest in infection prevention and control, antimicrobial resistance and Buruli ulcer. She has supported the Victorian Department of Health’s COVID-19 pandemic response since July 2020.

    She is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, a national examiner for the college and conjoint Associate Professor and senior lecturer at Deakin University’s School of Medicine, Geelong. 

  • Smallpox vaccines against monkeypox: Safety cosiderations — Associate Professor Nicholas Wood


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    Portrait of Associate Professor Nicholas WoodAssociate Professor Nicholas Wood MBBS, MPH, FRACP, PhD
    Associate Director, Clinical Research and Services, NCIRS
    Senior Staff Specialist

    Nicholas Wood is a staff specialist general paediatrician and Associate Professor in the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Sydney.

    Nick holds an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship. He leads the NSW Immunisation Specialist Service and coordinates the Immunisation Adverse Events Clinic at the Children's Hospital at Westmead.He is a senior investigator on the Primary Health Network Immunisation Support Program.

    Nick is interested in maternal and neonatal immunisation, as well as research into vaccine safety, including genetics and long-term outcomes of adverse events following immunisation.

  • TraX Study: Measuring monkeypox vaccine uptake and real-wold effectiveness — Professor Andrew Grulich


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    AGProfessor Andrew Grulich
    Program Head, HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Program, The Kirby Institute
     

    Professor Andrew Grulich is an internationally renowned authority in the transmission and prevention of HIV and sexually transmissible infections, and in the epidemiological relationship between immune deficiency, infection and cancer.

    He is a medical epidemiologist and a public health physician (FAFPHM, 1995), and in 2015 was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He has worked in HIV research for more than 30 years.

    His current research focusses mainly on two areas: the transmission and prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted infections in homosexual men, with a focus on biomedical and behavioural prevention, and the intersection between infection, altered immune function and cancer, particularly as it relates to human papillomavirus-related cancer and focusing on anal cancer.

    Through his membership of state and federal ministerial advisory committees, he has been centrally involved in the policy response to HIV prevention in Australia.

  • Remarks on Australia's monkeypox response — Professor Michael Kidd AM


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    MKProfessor Michael Kidd AM
    Deputy Chief Medical Officer — Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care

    Professor Michael Kidd AM has been a general practitioner for 35 years, working in urban and rural areas across Australia, and is a past president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. 

    He is a world-leading authority on primary healthcare, having worked in senior leadership positions in Australia and around the world, including the World Health Organization and the World Organization of Family Doctors. He has vast experience in national and global health systems.

  • Monkeypox vaccines — Q&A panel


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