Assessing paediatric blood culture quality: surveys of clinician and laboratory practices in Australia and New Zealand.

Paediatric blood cultures are vital for the diagnosis of paediatric bloodstream infections. Quality of paediatric blood culture collection, processing and reporting depend on multiple factors, with a paucity of literature describing these in practice. We conducted separate surveys of clinicians and laboratory staff to assess quality standards and knowledge related to paediatric blood culture collection, analysis, and interpretation to identify improvement opportunities.

Adverse events following immunisation: Prospective cohort study evaluating Australian children presenting to specialist immunisation clinics.

Objective: Prior experience of an adverse event following immunisation is a known barrier to vaccination. Limited Australian data evaluating adverse event recurrence among children exists to inform clinical decisions. We aimed to assess adverse event following immunisation recurrence among children with prior adverse events and to evaluate if family history increased adverse event risk.

Coverage gaps in empiric antibiotic regimens used to treat serious bacterial infections in neonates and children in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Background: High levels of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are propagating deaths due to neonatal and paediatric infections globally. This is of particular concern in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, where healthcare resources are constrained and access to newer agents to treat multidrug-resistant pathogens is limited.

Methods: To assess the coverage provided by commonly prescribed empiric antibiotic regimens for children in low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, we built a weighted incidence syndromic combination antibiogram (WISCA), parameterised using data obtained from a systematic review of published literature incorporating WHO-defined SEARO and WPRO regions in Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health and PubMed.