TB research leads to Premier's Award
June 2007
A Ph D student at the University of Melbourne's Australian International Health Institute has become the first public health researcher to win the prestigious Victorian Premier's Award for Medical Research.
Dr Helen Cox, who conducted her research whilst as at the AIHI as a student enrolled through the University's School of Population Health, investigated high levels of death caused by drug-resistant tuberculosis in the republic of Karakalpakstan, in the Aral Sea region of western Uzbekistan.
Tuberculosis accounts for the death of around two million people worldwide each year.
Dr Cox, who travelled to Uzbekistan with Médecins Sans Frontières, found that the proportion of patients in Karakalpakstan who died from or re-developed tuberculosis after treatment was not dissimilar to the rates of infection that were reported prior to antibiotic treatment being made available during the 1980s.
She also found that standard treatment created even higher levels of drug resistance.
The research led Dr Cox to conclude that a particular type of tuberculosis (the Beijing strain) had contributed to the increased transmission of drug-resistant TB in Karakalpakstan. Her findings contributed to the introduction and expansion of a specialised treatment program for people with drug-resistant tuberculosis in the republic, where more than 300 patients have to date been treated.
Dr Cox, who is now based at the Burnet Institute as an NHMRC post-doctoral fellow, is the first winner in the 13-year history of the Premier's Award to have received the prize for work undertaken in public health research. The 12 previous winners were all laboratory scientists.
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