The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to derail global efforts against killer infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV, leading to more deaths. As limited health resources in parts of Africa, Asia and Papua New Guinea are channelled into controlling the coronavirus, this could set back years of progress in tackling these diseases across vulnerable communities. In this episode, you’ll meet Burnet Institute’s Deputy Director, Professor James Beeson, a malaria vaccine specialist who...

Episode 7: Modelling COVID-19: Can we predict the future?     In an island-continent like Australia, with a population of almost 26 million, how is the coronavirus likely to spread? And how can transmission be halted? In this episode, you’ll meet Burnet Institute’s Deputy Director, Professor Margaret Hellard and Dr Nick Scott, the Head of Modelling. They are part of the team behind the Victorian adaptation of the COVASIM Epidemic model, which was first developed by the Institute for Disease...

For some pregnant women in Australia, the arrival of COVID-19 ushered in an unusually strange and lonely time. Reassuring face-to-face antenatal care was replaced by remote telehealth. Many gave birth supported by midwives dressed in PPE gear. In developing countries, women were considered lucky if they managed to secure an appointment with a midwife. In this episode, you’ll meet Burnet Institute’s Professor Caroline Homer, a leading midwifery researcher and maternal and newborn health...

Asking people to behave differently to how they would normally, is complicated. In a country like Australia, with over 270 different ancestries and a quarter of the population born in non-English speaking countries, it’s even more complex. Why then do we blame people for not following the public health restrictions when effective, targeted communication campaigns have been missing? In this episode, Burnet Institute Deputy Director, Professor Margaret Hellard explains how you can influence...

Epidemiologists have become the new rock stars in an era of coronavirus. It’s these ‘disease detectives’ who have kept the world informed about how the virus has been spreading and how it might spread in the future. In this episode, you’ll meet Professor Mike Toole, a 40-year veteran of disease control whose face now pops up all over the world’s media. Mike is an epidemiologist at Burnet Institute and the technical advisor to the Know- C19 Knowledge Hub. He had to shelve his retirement plans...

Why can’t a wealthy country like Australia, with its world-class medical resources simply shut out COVID-19? In this episode, Burnet Institute’s Professor Leanne Robinson, Program Director for Health Security unpicks the reason we can’t just barrier ourselves off from the rest of the world. She points to glaring inequalities on our doorstep, in countries like Papua New Guinea where she has lived and worked for more than a decade, and warns that ignoring this inequity will be at our own...

The speed of vaccine development for COVID-19 has amazed the most seasoned of scientists. So, how did we get here so fast? And will the vaccines continue to stop death and disease, days off work and ongoing economic disruption in its tracks as the virus keeps mutating? In this episode, you’ll meet Burnet Institute’s Professor Heidi Drummer, Program Director of Disease Elimination, who thinks no-one will be untouched by COVID-19 in 20 years’ time, and why the need for a coronavirus vaccine is...

Why was COVID-19 the virus that become a pandemic? In early 2020 as bushfires ravaged the east coast of Australia, there was an even bigger threat about to engulf the country – the coronavirus. When a virus that’s not normally found in humans took hold, it exposed all our vulnerabilities and inequalities. In this episode, Professor Brendan Crabb tells the story of how science was thrust into the spotlight in the hunt for an invisible enemy as the world looked for answers, and quickly. He also...

This is a science podcast from Burnet Institute, key advisers to the Australian Government during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hear from the nation’s leading scientific thinkers as they forensically uncover what it takes to battle a deadly disease.