Tropical Diseases
Improving the health outcomes for children and communities affected by tropical diseases through innovative research, global partnerships, and equitable solutions.
The Tropical Diseases group at MCRI is dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents affected by infectious diseases globally.
Our group is a multi-disciplinary research team with numerous active projects focusing on understanding and preventing infectious diseases across three main areas:
- Prevention of Strep A infection, including vaccine research and development
- Control of scabies and other neglected tropical diseases
- Prevention and control of rheumatic heart disease .
These illnesses can cause severe acute illness, long-term disability, impaired development, and death. Poverty, limited access to healthcare, and climate change further exacerbate these challenges, leaving many young people vulnerable to preventable and treatable conditions.
Our group views meaningful and positive collaboration as central to conducting impactful projects and we are involved in several partnerships, including:
- As a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Scabies Control
- Holding leadership positions in the International Alliance for the Control of Scabies (IACS)
- The Lancefield Society for Streptococcal and Streptococci disease and the Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium (SAVAC).
By generating high-quality evidence and strengthening local research and clinical capacity, our research helps inform better care, vaccines, and public health interventions for children.
Group Leaders
Team Leaders
Group Members
Our projects
World Scabies Program
The World Scabies Program is working with governments and partners to eliminate scabies as a public health problem.
This program aims to put scabies control on national and global agendas, implement community wide treatment strategies, and strengthen health systems to monitor and manage scabies.
Read more...Strep A controlled human infection model
Description: Leading a multinational team, the group developed the world’s only controlled human infection model of Strep A pharyngitis (‘strep throat’), safely causing convincing strep throat in healthy adult volunteers and building a valuable collection of throat swabs, blood, and saliva samples to drive detailed microbiology and immunology studies. The group is now using the model as a platform for randomised controlled vaccine human challenge trials to speed up the development of Strep A vaccines, and drugs, and for exciting studies of host-pathogen interactions.
Invasive group A surveillance
Invasive Strep A infection is a medical emergency in children. More than a third of children with this disease require mechanical ventilation and inotropic support. Also, invasive Strep A infection had comparable mortality ratios to Meningococcal disease before introducing the meningococcus vaccine. The group with partners, established paediatric surveillance for invasive Strep A infection at the RCH in 2014, expanding surveillance to multiple paediatric centres across Australia in 2017. The group is driving efforts to create a national invasive Strep A infection surveillance system to improve short and long-term outcomes.
Australian Strep A Vaccine Initiative (ASAVI)
The Australian Strep A Vaccine Initiative (ASAVI) is an Australian-led global initiative to reduce the disease burden caused by Strep A infections through effective vaccination. ASAVI is a partnership between Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and Telethon Kids Institute (TKI) and has a project team based across three locations in Melbourne and Perth. ASAVI’s main aim is to speed up the development of a lead Strep A vaccine candidate through early clinical development and to show the safety and efficacy of the vaccine in a phase 2b clinical trial in pharyngitis.
Establishment of Registers for Acute Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease in Victoria
This project aims to establish a register within Victoria that will provide health professionals within the state with up-to-date models of care and prevention for acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. Registers in other states have already shown their value by supporting health professionals in providing essential preventative actions and regular follow-up to patients and helping family members in the treatment of their children. The register will draw on years of lessons learnt from other jurisdictions to ensure the final product available to Victorian health professionals is the Gold Standard in Australia.
Fiji Islands Rheumatic Heart Disease Control and Prevention
In collaboration with the Fiji Ministry of Health, Cure Kids New Zealand and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade New Zealand, this project aims to facilitate the expansion and strengthening of the existing Fiji Rheumatic Heart Disease Control Program. The project aims to strengthen the evidence-based models of care and prevention for acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. Within the project, MCRI will roll out the Fiji Acute Sore Throat Surveillance to determine the accuracy of the Fiji Clinical Decision Rule for treating Strep A Pharyngitis, the major cause of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.
Collaborative project
International Alliance for the Control of Scabies Inc. (IACS)
The International Alliance for the Control of Scabies is an international association currently led by the group, bringing together researchers, clinicians and public health experts whose aim is the control and eradication of scabies. The Alliance aims to achieve this by advocating through different national and international partners/organisations, developing and providing up-to-date evidence for the control and potential elimination of scabies.
The Lancefield Society
The Lancefield Society is an international association currently led by the group that brings together professionals in streptococci and streptococcal diseases to raise awareness, promote scientific collaboration and research, and improve diagnosis, prevention and treatment.
Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium (SAVAC)
Led by MCRI Tropical Diseases and the International Vaccine Institute (Korea) the mission of the Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium (SAVAC) is to ensure that safe, effective and affordable Strep A vaccines are available and implemented to decrease the burden of Strep A disease in the most in need. SAVAC will bring together experts in their field to facilitate the development of a Strep A Vaccine.
The STOP trial
Led by researchers at the Telethon Kids Institute (Dr Asha Bowen), in collaboration with our group, the See-Treat-Prevent trial is a step-wedge trial of treatment as prevention for scabies and impetigo in the Kimberly region of Australia.
The Pre-YIAL trial
Led by researchers In the Pneumococcal Group at MCRI (A/Prof Fiona Russell), in collaboration with our group, the “Preventing Young Infant Infections using Azithromycin in Labour” trial is a blinded placebo-controlled trial of azithromycin in pregnant mothers in Fiji to prevent serious bacterial infections in their babies.
Australian Centre for Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ACE-NTD)
Led by the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales, in collaboration with our group and other Australian and international researchers, the ACE-NTD aims to speed up the control and eliminate key neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in priority countries of the Asia-Pacific region. As part of the collaboration, the ACE-NTDs coordinates and amplifies Australian population health research efforts to fill evidence gaps for our region, by bringing together our leading national research groups and international counterparts. The primary beneficiaries of our work should be the people most affected by NTDs.
Funding
Thanks to our funders and supporters.
- National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
- Macquarie Group Foundation
- Medical Research Futures Fund
- World Health Organisation
- Viertel Charitable Foundation
- The Scobie and Claire Mackinnon Trust
- CureKids New Zealand
Collaborations
We partner with leading institutions worldwide, including:
Molecular and clinical epidemiology of Strep A disease
- Lancefield Society
- SAEFVIC (Surveillance of Adverse Events Following Vaccination In the Community)
- Wellcome Institute
- Fiji Ministry of Health
Strep A vaccine advancement
- Telethon Kids Institute
- The University of Melbourne
- International Vaccine Institute
- University of Auckland
Scabies control and elimination
- Fiji Ministry of Health and Medical Services
- Solomon Islands Ministry of Health Medical Services
- Kirby Institute
- International Alliance for the Control of Scabies
- Live and Learn Environmental Education
Rheumatic heart disease control and prevention
- CureKids New Zealand
- Fiji Ministry of Health and Medical Services
- Cincinnati Children’s
- Makere University - Kampala
Others
- Griffith University
- University of Melbourne Centre for International Child Health (CICH)
Featured publications
Osowicki J, Frost HR, Azzopardi KI, Whitcombe AL, McGregor R, Carlton LH, Baker C, Fabri L, Pandey M, Good MF, Carapetis JR, Walker MJ, Smeesters PR, Licciardi PV, Moreland NJ, Hill DL, Steer AC. Streptococcus pyogenes pharyngitis elicits diverse antibody responses to key vaccine antigens influenced by the imprint of past infections. Nat Commun. 2024 Dec 3;15(1):10506. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54665-5. PMID: 39627204; PMCID: PMC11614873
Anderson J, Imran S, Frost HR, Azzopardi KI, Jalali S, Novakovic B, Osowicki J, Steer AC, Licciardi PV, Pellicci DG. Immune signature of acute pharyngitis in a Streptococcus pyogenes human challenge trial. Nat Commun. 2022 Feb 9;13(1):769. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28335-3. PMID: 35140232; PMCID: PMC8828729.
Engelman D, Cantey PT, Marks M, Solomon AW, Chang AY, Chosidow O, Enbiale W, Engels D, Hay RJ, Hendrickx D,Hotez PJ, Kaldor JM, Kama M, Mackenzie CD, McCarthy JS, Martin DL, Mengitsu B, Maurer T, Negussu N, Romani L, Sokana O, Whitfeld MJ, Fuller LC, SteerAC. The public health control of scabies: priorities for research and action.The Lancet 2019;394:81-92
Osowicki J, Azzopardi KI, Fabri L, Frost HR, Rivera-Hernandez T, Neeland MR, Whitcombe AL, Grobler A, Gutman SJ, Baker C, Wong JMF, Lickliter JD, Waddington CS, Pandey M, Schuster T, Cheng AC, Pollard AJ, McCarthy JS, GoodMF, Dale JB, Batzloff M, Moreland NJ, Walker MJ, Carapetis JR, Smeesters PR, Steer AC. A controlled human infection model of Streptococcus pyogenes pharyngitis (CHIVAS-M75): an observational, dose-finding study. The Lancet Microbe 2021;2:291-299
Smeesters PR, de Crombrugghe G, Tsoi SK, Leclercq C, Baker C, Osowicki J, Verhoeven C, Botteaux A,Steer AC. Global Streptococcus pyogenes strain diversity, disease associations, and implications for vaccine development. The Lancet Microbe. 2024;5:e181-193
Thean LJ, Romani L, Engelman D, Wand H, Jenney A, Mani J, Paka J, Cua T, Taole S, Silai M, Ashwini K, Sahukhan A, Kama M, Tuicakau M, Kado J, Parnaby M, Carvalho N, Whitfeld M, Kaldor J, STEER AC. Prevention of bacterialcomplications of scabies using mass drug administration: A population-based, before-after trial in Fiji, 2018-2020. The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific 2022;22:100433
Abo YN, Oliver J, McMinn A, Osowicki J, Baker C, Clark JE, Blyth CC, Francis JR, Carr J, Smeesters PR, Crawford NW, Steer AC. IIncrease in invasive group A streptococcal disease among Australian children coinciding with northern hemisphere surges. The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific 2023;41:100873
Susanna J Lake, John M Kaldor, Myra Hardy, Daniel Engelman, Andrew C Steer, Lucia Romani, Mass Drug Administration for the Control of Scabies: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 75, Issue 6, 15 September 2022, Pages 959–967
Andersson S, Parnaby M, Lake S, Zinihite J, Bechu V, Kaurasi R, et al. (2026) National control programs for scabies: Experiences from Fiji and Solomon Islands. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 20(2): e0013874.
Hardy M, Samuela J, Kama M, Tuicakau M, Romani L, Whitfeld MJ, King CL, Weil GJ, Grobler AC, Robinson LJ, Kaldor JM, Steer AC. Individual Efficacy and Community Impact of Ivermectin, Diethylcarbamazine, and Albendazole Mass Drug Administration for Lymphatic Filariasis Control in Fiji: A Cluster Randomized Trial. Clin Infect Dis. 2021 Sep 15;73(6):994-1002. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciab202
Hardy M, Samuela J, Kama M, Tuicakau M, Romani L, Whitfeld MJ, King CL, Weil GJ, Schuster T, Grobler AC, Engelman D, Robinson LJ, Kaldor JM, Steer AC. Community control strategies for scabies: A cluster randomised noninferiority trial. PLoS Med. 2021 Nov 10;18(11):e1003849. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003849. PMID: 34758017; PMCID: PMC8612541.
Hardy M, Engelman D. Evidence based choices for first line scabies treatment. BMJ. 2026 Mar 2;392:s380. doi: 10.1136/bmj.s380. PMID: 41771639.
Abo YN, Oliver J, McMinn A, Osowicki J, Clark JE, Blyth CC, Francis JR, Britton PN, Carr JP, Smeesters PR, Crawford NW, Steer AC. Increased burden of invasive group A streptococcal disease among Australian children, 2023-2024: a prospective cohort study. Lancet Reg Health West Pac. 2026 Apr 9;69:101850. doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2026.101850. PMID: 42004581; PMCID: PMC13091357.