News in brief: Children with neurological conditions eligible for Pfizer vaccine; Stem cell hydrogel: a new tool against Parkinson’s disease?; Senior doctors quarantined because kids’ school has COVID-19 case

5 Aug 2021

ATAGI recommends Pfizer vaccine for children with neurological conditions

Children aged 12–15 with neurological conditions are among the high risk groups for COVID-19 that should prioritised for vaccination using the Comirnaty (Pfizer) vaccine, according to the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI)

Following the recent TGA approval of Pfizer vaccine to be extended from people aged 16 years and over to include children aged 12–15 years, ATAGI has recommended that children with specified medical conditions such as epilepsy and cerebral palsy should be first to receive the vaccine, along with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and children living in remote communities.

The specified medical conditions also include down syndrome, muscular dystrophy, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, severe intellectual disability.

However in its advice, ATAGI acknowledges that myocarditis and/or pericarditis have recently been reported overseas in adolescents aged 12 and older following mRNA COVID-19 vaccines including Comirnaty.


Stem cell hydrogel: a new tool against Parkinson’s disease?

A new type of hydrogel could one day join neurologists’ armamentarium against Parkinson’s disease.

Developed by researchers at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and the Australian National University, the peptide-based stem cell delivery system features glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor and is designed to promote graft cells’ survival and integration into the brain.

“Through use of the hydrogel technique we demonstrated increased survival of the grafted dopamine neurons and restored movement in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease,” Professor Clare Parish, Head of the Stem Cell and Neural Development Laboratory at The Florey Institute, said in a media release.

The stem cell transplant could offer patients a “one-off intervention” that could sustain dopamine levels long-term and help them avoid adverse effects associated with other dopamine-related drugs, Professor Parish said.

The technology needs to pass clinical trials and regulatory approval but Professor Parish and her team hope it will be available for use in the near future.


Senior doctors quarantined because kids’ school has COVID-19 case

Hundreds of healthcare staff in Queensland including many senior doctors are being forced into isolation and unable to work because their children attend schools affected by a COVID-19 cluster.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said there were 400 Queensland Health employees now in isolation, including all cardiac surgeons at Queensland’s Children Hospital.

“Several senior doctors have confirmed the schools’ outbreak had potentially put about 50 per cent of surgeons in Brisbane into isolation as their children were attending schools associated with the COVID-19 cluster,” an ABC report said.

Many of the healthcare staff are classed as close family contacts of the thousands of students at schools shut down as part of the so-called “Indooroopilly cluster” which includes Brisbane Grammar and Brisbane Girls Grammar School.

The isolation of healthcare staff and closure of hospital departments has forced patients to be diverted from Brisbane to Gold Coast hospitals.

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