In March 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert recommending active worldwide surveillance for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). This paper describes the epidemiological features of cases reported by Australian states and territories to the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing between 17 March and 31 July 2003. There were 138 people investigated...

In 2002, Tasmania reported the largest number of Ross River virus (RRV) infections ever recorded for the state. Of the 117 cases, 37 lived in, or had visited, the Sorell Municipal Area, east of Hobart. In early 2002, a combination of spring tides and high summer rainfall produced extensive saltmarsh habitat in the Sorell region, resulting in unseasonably high densities of the mosquito Ochlerota...

Reports of six deaths internationally, including one from Australia, plus other cases of severe systemic adverse events following yellow fever (YF) vaccination have raised concern about the safety of YF vaccine, particularly among older vaccinees. We investigated the age-related reporting rates of adverse events following YF vaccination reported to the Australian Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory...

YY1 is a DNA-binding transcription factor found in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Database searches identified 62 YY1 related sequences from all the available genome sequences ranging from flying insects to human. These sequences are characterized by high levels of sequence conservation, ranging from 66% to 100% similarity, in the zinc finger DNA-binding domain of the predicted proteins. P...

Vaccination status Vaccination status was known in 3929 cases (69%). Of these, 2824 (72%) were unvaccinated: 1076 cases (38%) were <1 year old, 668 cases (24%) were 1–4 years old, 296 cases (10%) were 5–9 years old, 258 cases (9%) were 10–14 years old, 135 cases (5%) were 15–19 years old and 386 cases (14%) were ≥20 years old. The remaining 1105 cases (28%) were reportedly vaccinated with at le...