RSV vaccines and prevention programs: evidence, safety and impact

Kristine Macartney is a paediatrician and infectious disease specialist. She is a medical graduate of the University of NSW and has over 20 years of experience in vaccinology.

She has experience working in the US at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she was a founding member of the US Vaccine Education Center. Her Doctorate of Medicine was on rotavirus infection, in particular the mucosal immune response to novel vaccine candidates. She is interested in all aspects of vaccine preventable disease research, particularly policy development, vaccine safety and prevention of viral diseases. She is the Senior Editor of the Australian Immunisation Handbook. Kristine is a Staff Specialist in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and has a conjoint academic appointment as Professor in the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Sydney.

Krispin Hajkowicz is a Senior Staff Specialist in the Infectious Diseases Unit at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital and its former Director of Infectious Diseases. Krispin is also a clinician-researcher at the University of Queensland Frazer Institute, whose research focuses on traditional burden of disease studies, the molecular epidemiology of respiratory viral infections in adults, and clinical metagenomics for novel and emerging virus detection. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.

Katherine Gibney is an infectious diseases physician, public health physician and medical epidemiologist. Katherine works at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Doherty Institute. She is co-chair of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) and leads clinical trials in streptococcal infections.

Meg Creely is a general practitioner based in Tasmania who has a strong interest in the practical implementation of vaccination programs – and in supporting safe and consistent immunisation as a part of routine primary care. Meg is actively involved in statewide advisory and reference groups, and in providing general practice representation on immunisation-related matters. 

Meg also provides educational and communications support to general practices and is clinical editor of Community HealthPathways for the Tasmanian Primary Health Network. She has undertaken postgraduate training in public health and studies in health economics. Her broader interests are in prevention, public health policy and strengthening primary care.

Mandy Callary is a geriatrician from South Australia. Her clinical subspeciality areas are in cognitive disorders, delirium, frailty, de-prescribing and clinical governance. As a geriatrician, Mandy has provided medical assessment and care to older people in their homes, in residential aged care facilities, and in the hospital and wider healthcare systems. 

Mandy’s 20-year tenure as an aged care board member has provided her with considerable insights into how the aged care sector operates and conducts itself, and how, in her new role as Chief Clinical Advisor, she can best support the sector to improve the health, wellbeing, and quality of life of older people receiving aged care services.