The nation’s public health response capacity is at serious risk because the Australian Government has decided not to renew funding for an epidemiology program, according to an article in the Medical Journal of Australia.
Emeritus Professor Robert Douglas, visiting fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, and co-authors discuss the importance of the Master of Applied Epidemiology (MAE) program and its role in preventing the spread of epidemics.
Prof Douglas said that the Australian Government’s decision not to renew funding for the MAE program was disappointing as the program had provided the investigative backbone to Communicable Disease Network Australia for nearly 20 years.
“Although Australia is now one of the few industrialised nations that has no national centre for disease control, the MAE program at least represented one of the essential elements that such a national organisation would provide,” Prof Douglas said.
“The MAE program was born as a response to the urgent need, recognised during the early years of the HIV epidemic, for Australia to upgrade its national disease intelligence capacity.
“Over two decades, 160 MAE trainees have played central roles in stemming the spread of about 200 epidemics, including the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.
“Infections respect neither state nor national boundaries and, under Australia’s political structure, their control can only be achieved through a consistent, coordinated effort by the federal and jurisdictional governments.
“This will leave Australia vulnerable at a time when increasing population movements, changing climate, and other pressures increase the likelihood that we will face new pandemics and the re-emergence of old ones.
“The ongoing human resource represented by the MAE trainees is a highly cost-effective insurance policy that we cannot risk losing in the challenging times ahead.”
The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.
Source: Medical Journal of Australia