Using Genomics to Understand the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases in the Northern Territory of Australia

The Northern Territory (NT) is a geographically remote region of northern and central Australia. Approximately a third of the population are First Nations Australians, many of whom live in remote regions. Due to the physical environment and climate, and scale of social inequity, the rates of many in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease
Main Authors: Ella M. Meumann, Vicki L. Krause, Robert Baird, Bart J. Currie
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022
Subjects:
genomics
sequencing
infectious diseases
epidemiology
tropics
Medicine
R
First Nations
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7080181
https://doaj.org/article/5868918290ff4efba6c896415b7a2385
Description
Summary:The Northern Territory (NT) is a geographically remote region of northern and central Australia. Approximately a third of the population are First Nations Australians, many of whom live in remote regions. Due to the physical environment and climate, and scale of social inequity, the rates of many infectious diseases are the highest nationally. Molecular typing and genomic sequencing in research and public health have provided considerable new knowledge on the epidemiology of infectious diseases in the NT. We review the applications of genomic sequencing technology for molecular typing, identification of transmission clusters, phylogenomics, antimicrobial resistance prediction, and pathogen detection. We provide examples where these methodologies have been applied to infectious diseases in the NT and discuss the next steps in public health implementation of this technology.

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