Infectious Diseases and Public Health Epidemiology

• 
  Research Group Leader
  Dr Katherine Gibney

  katherine.gibney@unimelb.edu.au

  View researcher's webpage

  03 9035 3958

Research Overview

Our group undertakes clinical and epidemiological research into infectious diseases of public health importance, including group A streptococcal disease, Buruli ulcer, vector borne diseases and COVID. We work closely with clinician-researchers and government to generate research questions, access data and influence policy and management. We undertake primary clinical research as well as analyses of routinely collected health data. We work collaboratively with many other groups in the Doherty – particularly infectious diseases modellers and genomics experts – and in the Parkville precinct.

Staff

• Dr Katherine Gibney
• Dr Jane Oliver, Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Funding

• NHMRC Partnership Project (GNT1196396) "Stopping Buruli ulcer in Victoria"
• Department of Health and Human Services, Victoria (DHHS), COVID-19 Victorian Consortium "The Optimise Study: Optimising isolation, quarantine and distancing for COVID-19"
• Isabel & John Gilbertson Charitable Trust, "Saliva for diagnosis of COVID-19 in primary care, paediatric and out of hospital settings (The SPIT study)"

Research Publications

1. GIBNEY KB, Cheng AC, Hall R, Leder K. Sociodemographic and geographic inequalities in notifiable communicable diseases in Australia: An analysis of 21 years of national disease surveillance data. Lancet Infect Dis 2017. 17(1), 86-97.
2. GIBNEY KB, et al. Emergence of attenuated measles illness among IgG positive/IgM negative measles cases, Victoria, Australia 2008-2017. Clin Infect Dis 2019: 70(6):1060-7
3. GIBNEY KB, MacLachlan J, Coutts, R, Higgins N, Strachan J. Incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease higher among people notified with markers of hepatitis C virus infection: Population-based surveillance in Victoria, Australia 2001-2017 Clin Infect Dis 2020. doi: 101093/cid/ciaa1110 [online ahead of print]
4. Koolhof IS, GIBNEY KB, et al. The forecasting of dynamical Ross River virus outbreaks: Victoria, Australia. Epidemics 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.epidem.2019.100377
5. OLIVER J, Wilmot M, Strachan J, St GEorge S, Lane CR, Ballard SA, Sait M, GIBNEY KB, Howden BP, Williamson DA. Recent trends in invasive group A Streptococcal disease in Victoria. Commun Dis Intell 2019. doi: 10.33321/cdi.2019.43.8