Location:
Berg Family Foundation Seminar Room, Level 6, Wallace Wurth Building, Kensington Campus, UNSW Sydney
Contact for enquiries
Rata Joseph, +61 (2) 9385 0900 or recpt@kirby.unsw.edu.au
Kirby Institute Seminar Series presents
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NHMRC Early Career Fellow, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and Monash University Twitter: @EricPFChow |
About your speaker
Dr Eric Chow completed his PhD at the Kirby Institute in 2014. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University and Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, supported by an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship. He has more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and published in high ranked journals such as the Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet HIV, Emerging Infectious Diseases and Clinical Infectious Diseases. His primary research interests include prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections, particularly in gonorrhoea and human papillomavirus. He is currently leading an NHMRC-funded multicentre mouthwash trial in gay and bisexual men who have sex with men, and its findings could potentially be translated into a novel public health strategy to halt the rise in gonorrhoea.
Abstract
Gonorrhoea is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the rate of infection is increasing at an alarming rate not only in Australia but also in many western countries such as the US and UK. The rise in antibiotic resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae may make gonorrhoea very difficult to treat, allowing for its rapid spread through sexual networks. As such, gonorrhoea has become a major emerging global public health problem and is therefore considered a “priority organism” in the Australian National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy, and a “global threat” by the World Health Organization. In Australia, the most at-risk population for gonorrhoea is gay and bisexual men who have sex with men (MSM) but there has been a substantial rise in other populations (e.g. sex workers and heterosexuals) in the last few years. The oropharynx has become the most common anatomical site for gonorrhoea infection. During this seminar, Eric will discuss the role of the oropharynx in gonorrhoea transmission in different risk populations and a potential novel intervention for oropharyngeal gonorrhoea.