Premier's commendation for Ivanhoe health researcher

A public health researcher, Dr Andrew Steer, has received a commendation in the 2011 Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research. His investigations into the bacteria which causes rheumatic fever, pharyngitis and impetigo are changing policy at an international level.

Dr Andrew Steer received $8000 and a certificate for his work from the Premier of Victoria at Government House.

His research focused on the group A streptococcus, a bacteria that affects up to 18.1 million people worldwide, with at least 517,000 dying each year. Indigenous Australians are particularly at risk from the disease.

According to Dr Steer, a vaccine that is effective in both resource-rich and poor countries is desperately needed to combat the disease. However, vaccine development is only in its infancy.

Working in Fiji, Dr Steer discovered that a newly developed vaccine previously tested in the United States and Canada would not be effective in the developing world.

His studies also revealed that the island nation had some of the highest rates of the disease in the world, suggesting the global spread of the disease was underestimated.

However, his research found that a new vaccine under clinical trials in Australia has great potential for use in both the developed and developing world.

Once the Australian trials have been evaluated, it is hoped that a new trial will be established in Fiji.

These investigations into group A streptococcus are the most detailed in a developing country to date and are of great significance to international efforts in developing a global vaccine to control the disease.

Dr Steer’s findings, which have been published in 26 journals with nearly 300 citations, are now informing and influencing international research initiatives and public health policy, including the World Health Organization, the World Heart Federation and Rheumatic Heart Disease Australia.

Dr Steer is a paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Child Health, and in 2011 was awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council/National Heart Foundation post-doctoral fellowship. He holds honorary positions at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the Menzies School of Health Research.

He undertook his PhD at the Centre for International Child Health, Department of Paediatrics, the University of Melbourne.

The Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research is an initiative of the Victorian Government and the Australian Society for Medical Research and is presented annually to an outstanding Victorian postgraduate health or medical researcher scholar.