Understanding the Prevalence and Potential for Transmission of Healthcare-Associated Infections in Victoria, Australia

Date:

18 June 2025, Wednesday

Time:

2pm SGT (Time Zone Conversion)

Platform:

Zoom 

Synopsis:

Healthcare associated infections cause significant morbidity and mortality globally. In Australia, many of these conditions are not reported to central health authorities. Using data from a point prevalence survey in 2017, we produced the first national estimates of healthcare associated infection burden since the 1970s. These estimates highlighted disparities in incidence among older people, and females, which are not present in European estimates.

Following this, I will show how we are beginning to understand transmission routes for healthcare acquired antimicrobially resistant infections. By using unlisted, patient admission data, we build networks of patient movements at different levels of temporal detail. We show that the inclusion of patients at home, as well as the distribution of time they are at home are key to building accurate networks for transmission. This forms the first steps in designing surveillance and outbreak control systems in this setting.

About the speaker:

Dr Michael Lydeamore
Senior Lecturer, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia