Scabies is a parasitic infestation of the skin with the parasitic 'itch mite' Sarcoptes scabiei. The tiny mite burrows into the upper layers of the skin causing intensely itchy lesions which commonly become infected with bacteria. In humans, scabies is a particularly significant disease in children, but occurs in both sexes, at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and at all socioeconomic levels. Transmission of the mites from one person to the next is by direct skin to skin contact.
Scabies is a significant disease worldwide in humans, wildlife, livestock and domestic animals and is a particularly serious problem in many remote Australia Indigenous communities, where overcrowded living conditions are a major factor contributing to high rates of transmission.
Our research focus:
- To conduct community based treatment projects aimed at reducing the prevalence of skin infections
- To build capacity in local community workers in recognising and treating skin infections and in research methods
- To monitor for and investigate the molecular mechanisms of emerging drug resistance in scabies mites
- To investigate how scabies mites live and survive in the skin. Proteins which may be essential for mite survival could be targets for the design of alternative treatments for scabies
- To investigate how the infested person’s immune system responds to the scabies mites, and why some people’s immune systems react differently to the mites, resulting in severe infestation known as crusted scabies.
- We use an established laboratory test to determine the sensitivity of scabies mites collected from scabies patients, to current treatments. This enables us to assess the likely effectiveness of treatments used for individual crusted scabies patients, as well as monitor for the emergence of drug resistance in scabies mites.
Key staff:
Collaborators:
- Telethon Kids Institute
- Northern Territory Centre for Disease Control
- One Disease
- International Alliance for Control of Scabies (IACS)
- Queensland Institute of Medical Research, University of the Sunshine Coast
- Rapid point-of-care molecular diagnostic for scabies and co-infections
- Toward a scabies control strategy for northern Australia: Methods to map the burden of scabies and evaluation of a community-wide preventative chemotherapy strategy in two Indigenous communities
- STopping Acute Rheumatic Fever Infections to Strengthen Health (STARFISH)
- Check4Strep
- Phase II, randomized, double-blind, parallel group dose finding study of single oral doses of moxidectin in adults with scabies.
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