Publications by authors named "Britton P"
Aim: To describe the timing and causes of post-neonatally acquired cerebral palsy (PNN-CP) and map the implementation of relevant preventive strategies against cause-specific temporal trends in prevalence.
Methods: Data for a 1975-2014 birth cohort of children with PNN-CP (brain injury between 28 days and 2 years of age) were drawn from the Victorian and Western Australian CP Registers. Descriptive statistics were used to report causal events and timing.
Parenteral aciclovir for suspected herpes simplex virus infection in children: 0-18 years.
J Antimicrob Chemother
November 2024
Article Synopsis
- A study reviewed medical records from eight hospitals in Australia and New Zealand examining how intravenous aciclovir is prescribed for suspected herpes simplex virus (HSV) disease in neonates and older children between January and December 2019.
- Out of 1,426 patients, most received aciclovir for suspected cases without definitive HSV testing; notably, only a small fraction had confirmed diagnoses among older children, indicating potentially excessive and unjustified prescribing.
- Among the patients, adverse effects included instances of nephrotoxicity and extravasation injuries, raising concerns about the safety and necessity of such treatments in the pediatric population.
Article Synopsis
- Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of serious respiratory infections in children, and this study aimed to compare hospitalized cases of RSV with other viral infections in children under 2 years old.
- A retrospective analysis of 660 children revealed that those with RSV were older and showed more severe symptoms, needing longer hospital stays and more frequent antibiotic treatment.
- The findings highlight that RSV-positive cases exhibited more serious clinical features, indicating a need for better prevention and treatment strategies for RSV infections in young children.
Travel-associated illness in children in pre-pandemic Western Sydney, 2018-2020.
Public Health Res Pract
October 2024
Unlabelled: Objectives and importance of study: Australian children frequently travel overseas, but little is known about their travel-related morbidity. We aimed to describe the spectrum of illness and injury in returned travellers presenting to the largest paediatric referral centre in NSW, the Children's Hospital at Westmead (CHW).
Study Type: Observational cohort study.
Widening the lens for pandemic preparedness: children must be seen heard.
Lancet Reg Health West Pac
October 2024
Background: Following reduction of public health and social measures concurrent with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron emergence in late 2021 in Australia, COVID-19 case notification rates rose rapidly. As rates of direct viral testing and reporting dropped, true infection rates were most likely to be underestimated.
Objective: To better understand infection rates and immunity in this population, we aimed to estimate SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in Australians aged 0-19 years.
Article Synopsis
- Pediatric long COVID is still not fully understood, and this study aimed to explore its impact on children and adolescents following the 2021 Delta variant outbreak in Australia.
- Out of 11,864 surveyed parents, 17.6% responded, with 11.7% of children reporting ongoing symptoms or functional impairment; only a small fraction were classified as having Long COVID.
- The findings suggest that while most children recover within 12 weeks, a notable minority may experience long-term symptoms, highlighting the need for further attention and research on risk factors like age and previous health issues.
Article Synopsis
- There is a significant need for clinical trials that include infants, children, and adolescents to ensure evidence-based care; this communication discusses three different trial design strategies to address this issue.
- The three strategies include sequential, parallel, and unified adult-pediatric Bayesian adaptive designs, which allow for better integration of pediatric populations into clinical research.
- The unified design, exemplified by the SNAP trial, utilizes Bayesian hierarchical models to share data across age groups, enhancing accuracy in assessing treatment safety and efficacy for both children and adults.
Article Synopsis
- A 3-year study in five Australian children's hospitals found that Gram-negative bloodstream infections (GNBSIs) significantly affect children under 5, often occurring in those with existing health issues and central venous catheters.
- Out of 931 infection episodes involving 818 children, community onset was common, and 71% of cases involved antibiotic-resistant pathogens, particularly from the Enterobacterales family.
- The study highlighted a 3% in-hospital mortality rate, with infections involving third-generation cephalosporin resistant Enterobacterales linked to higher mortality rates, suggesting a need for improved prevention and treatment strategies.
Objectives: Enteric fever carries appreciable morbidity in non-endemic settings, particularly in returned travelers. This study aimed to characterize the healthcare burden of enteric fever in a low-incidence setting and to identify risk factors and opportunities for preventative interventions.
Methods: Analysis of a retrospective case series from a tertiary pediatric center (2015-2019), augmented by public health notification and microbiological laboratory data (2018-2019), from Western Sydney, Australia, a region with frequent travel links to South Asia.
Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs) in children <2 years of age. Currently, there are limited data on risk factors for very severe RSV-ALRI requiring intensive care unit (ICU) admission.
Methods: We conducted a case-control study of children <2 years old admitted with RSV-ALRI to the Sydney Children's Hospital Network, comprising 2 large tertiary pediatric hospitals.
Objective: To better understand processes of mental health crisis line utilization by examining associations between reasons for contacting a crisis line with the initiation of emergency dispatches (i.e., activation of 911 or local emergency services) in a national sample.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe avian Gammacoronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) causes major economic losses in the poultry industry as the aetiological agent of infectious bronchitis, a highly contagious respiratory disease in chickens. IBV causes major economic losses to poultry industries across the globe and is a concern for global food security. IBV vaccines are currently produced by serial passage, typically 80 to 100 times in chicken embryonated eggs (CEE) to achieve attenuation by unknown molecular mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman parechovirus (HPeV) is a leading cause of Central Nervous System (CNS) infection in infancy. Despite this, little is known regarding the long-term neuropsychological impacts from HPeV infection. The aim of the present study was to explore the long-term neuropsychological impacts eight-year post-HPeV infection contracted during infancy.
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- Reversible cysteine modifications are useful in various applications, but current reagents have issues with stability and tunability.
- The study introduces pyridazinediones as new reversible and tunable covalent modifiers for cysteine, showing their reactivity linked to Michael addition and deconjugation rates.
- The research explores the regioselectivity of these reactions and demonstrates their practical applications in creating faster disulfide rebridging agents and modifying clinically relevant proteins and materials.
Aim: Australian and New Zealand guidelines recommend that live vaccines be postponed for 11 months after treatment of Kawasaki disease (KD) with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG). We aimed to describe patterns of live-vaccine administration after KD treatment, focusing on the measles-mumps-rubella/measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMR/MMRV) vaccines, and to compare real-world practice with current recommendations.
Methods: We combined data from inpatient Electronic Health Records and the Australian Immunisation Register for all children who received IVIG for the treatment of KD under the age of 5 years at two Australian tertiary children's hospitals over a 12-year period.
Mother-to-child transmission accounts for the majority of new HIV infections among children worldwide. Post-natal prophylaxis, in addition to other preventive measures, have been very successful in reducing transmission to babies born to mothers living with HIV infection to <2%. Single-drug prophylaxis with zidovudine is the mainstay regimen for infants in low-risk transmission settings.
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- A study analyzed COVID-19 severity in hospitalized children across nine countries, focusing on the impact of different SARS-CoV-2 variants over time.
- It found that children younger than 5 years showed a decrease in ICU admissions during the Omicron wave compared to the earlier variants, but ventilatory support needs remained unchanged.
- In older children (5 to <18 years), there was a significant decrease in ICU admissions, ventilatory support, and oxygen therapy requirements as new variants emerged.