Lowering Australia’s defence against infectious diseases

Douglas, Robert M; Stanley, Fiona J; Moodie, A Rob; Adams, Anthony I; Kaldor, John M

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb04062.x

Topics

The Australian Government’s recent decision not to renew federal funding for the Master of Applied Epidemiology (MAE) program at the Australian National University (ANU) puts the nation’s public health response capacity at serious risk. This program has provided the investigative backbone to the Communicable Diseases Network Australia for nearly 20 years.

1 National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.
2 Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA.
3 Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC.
4 Global Commission for Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
5 National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence: bobdouglas@netspeed.com.au

Competing interests:

Fiona Stanley received an Indigenous Capacity Building Grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Rob Moodie is the chair of the National Preventative Health Taskforce, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

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