Premium
The importance of public health genomics for ensuring health security for Australia
Author(s) -
Williamson Deborah A,
Kirk Martyn D,
Sintchenko Vitali,
Howden Benjamin P
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/mja2.50063
Subject(s) - genomics , health security , public health , business , environmental health , medicine , genome , biology , nursing , genetics , gene
Infectious diseases are an everpresent risk to society, particularly because of globalisation and the threat of antimicrobialresistant organisms. Recently, a World Health Organization (WHO) team conducted a joint external evaluation of Australia’s core capacities under the International Health Regulations. The evaluation gave Australia a high scorecard in all areas relevant to protecting health from emerging infectious disease threats.1 However, an area that the evaluation team highlighted for critical improvement was the integration of whole genome sequencingbased surveillance into existing communicable diseases control systems in the Australian setting.1 While Australia scored highly for laboratory testing of priority diseases, the team recommended “integration of laboratory testing data with epidemiological data particularly in the context of whole genome sequencing”.1