Do Group A Streptococcus isolates causing skin infections in remote WA encode genes that correlate with disease severity, antibiotic resistance, or adverse immunological outcomes?

Indigenous Australian children suffer the highest rates of impetigo (skin sores) in the world, which can result in serious immune complications including chronic kidney and possibly rheumatic heart disease. This fellowship proposal will develop laboratory methods to characterise the disease­‐causing methods of bacteria that cause impetigo, information that will be used to assist clinical trials aimed at developing improved treatments. Specifically, the aims of this proposal will identify the bacterial genes that are associated with disease frequency and severity, and that confer resistance to antibiotics. In addition, it will develop a new method to characterise the serious immune complications of impetigo. Finally, it will begin to apply these methods to a comprehensive skin disease control program in Aboriginal communities in the WA Kimberley region.