May 2009

A ground-breaking study currently being undertaken by leading Aboriginal health researchers Menzies in the Northern Territory is on the brink of significantly reducing ear disease in Aboriginal children through a pneumococcal vaccination passed from mother to child.

Currently two out of every three Indigenous Australian children suffer from chronic ear infections and ear disease, which usually leads to impaired hearing and deafness in Indigenous children and adults. On a global scale an overwhelming 20% of Australian Indigenous children in the Northern Territory are currently suffering from ear disease, the highest in comparison to any other Indigenous counterparts, the closest being Nigerian children at 7.3% and Maori children at 4%. Research into this problem that has been conducted in these other affected communities has formed the basis of this current trial on Aboriginal mothers.

The study, known as ‘PneuMum’ being lead by Professor Ross Andrews, involves 210 expectant Aboriginal mothers from Darwin and remote communities. The vaccine is given to three groups of 70 mothers, the first group during the last three months of pregnancy, the second group shortly after childbirth and the third group when their child is seven months old. “This controlled method helps us identify how much of the vaccine immunity is passed to the child through the womb in comparison through breast milk,” Andrews notes.

A marriage of germs called pneumococcal bacteria found in children’s noses and throats that cause a build up of fluid in the middle ear can be linked to the spread of the infection. Given the germs location, the germ is highly contagious, transferring easily through everyday contact of kissing, touching, coughing and sneezing. Andrews predicts that “giving (the vaccination) to a mother might help to protect her baby in the first few months of life when many babies first start to get the infection caused by the germ”.

Detecting symptoms is not difficult, however because the disease is so common, many children and mothers do not report it to health officers. “Where non-Aboriginal children get a runny nose, Indigenous children get runny ears” comments Andrews who sees severe cases on a weekly basis. “Most children will not complain about the pain because they have lived with the disease for so long they experience it as the norm."

PneuMum is aimed at protecting the infants during their first critical months of life where the risk of infection is at its highest. “Basically we are trying to buy some time for the infant until they begin their first 3 vaccinations at two, four and six months of age,” Andrews says. “So far we are two thirds into the project, having engaged 148 mothers, and the results are looking very positive."

For more information about this project please contact ross.andrews@menzies.edu.au