Your support can help fund life-saving infectious diseases research
Each year
10,000,000
people die of infectious diseases globally
In Australia
702,000
notifiable infectious disease cases in 2021*
In Australia
5800
infectious diseases deaths in 2020*
Despite advancements in modern medicine and hygiene, infectious diseases remain a major global threat. Globally, there are 219 known human viruses that, pre-COVID-19, killed more than ten million people every year.
The global COVID-19 pandemic shows that we will continue to face infectious diseases threats for decades to come. RBWH researchers have made major contributions to the understanding and management of current and emerging pathogens, ensuring our hospital’s response to infectious diseases is world-class.
– Professor Krispin Hajkowicz.
RBWH Infectious Diseases Unit Senior Staff Specialist Associate
RBWH specialists treat severe and life threatening infectious diseases and conduct research to find new treatments and preventitive measures and vaccines. There are four main causes of infectious diseases:
viruses
bacteria
fungi
parasites
Many are also communicable, which means they can be passed from one person to another either directly through contact or indirectly, through contaminated surfaces, food or water. Some can also be spread through ‘vectors’, such as mosquitoes.
The best defence, now and into the future, is life-saving research into prevention, management, and treatment of these diseases. Your donation is a gift of time to advance patient care and infectous diseases medical research. Together, we can protect Australians, now and into the future.
An extraordinary opportunity to support the Herston Infectious Diseases Institute
RBWH Infectious Diseases specialists have joined the global research effort through funding provided by RBWH Foundation donors.
The establishment of the Herston Infectious Diseases Institute (HeIDI) at the Herston Health Campus will improve treatments and reduce the mortality of COVID-19 and future pandemics, but more funding is needed to ensure the long-term viability of the Institute and to fund more vital research projects.
The Institute is a collaboration of clinician-researchers focussing on translational research, innovative clinical practice, and outstanding clinical education to optimise the outcomes for patients with infectious diseases. It builds on 155 years of world-class infectious diseases research at the Herston Health Precinct.
Institute expertise includes prevention of infection, rapid diagnosis, clinical trials - both optimising currently available antibiotics and introducing new agents, ensuring accurate antibiotic dosing and developing a comprehensive understanding of the transmission and impact of infectious diseases in Queensland.
World-first research is solving antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance is a global public health threat, with experts predicting it will kill more people than cancer by the year 2050.(1)
Research to prevent this grim scenario has been the life's work of Professor Jeffrey Lipman AM, RBWH Ambassador for Research and Consultant Intensive Care Services.
“We have shown over the last 20 years that we have been dosing incorrectly in adults in Intensive Care Units (ICUs),” said Professor Lipman, an international expert in antibiotic dosing.
The RBWH Foundation is proud to help fund this research, which has changed the way antibiotics are used across most RBWH wards, including paediatrics, and in ICUs worldwide.
(1) O’Neill, J et al. Antimicrobial Resistance: Tackling a crisis for the health and wealth of nations 2016.
*AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) (2022), Infectious and Communicable Diseases, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 18 January 2023
A monthly gift will help support a diverse range of extraordinary infectious diseases patient care and research projects that would otherwise go unfunded
While very donation makes a difference, regular gifts are the most powerful way to help ensure life-saving infectious diseases research and patient care projects are funded. This research has potential to save lives in Australia and around the world..
