Health emergencies and pandemic response

The concept of health emergencies covers a wide range of complex, overlapping threats. Burnet is addressing challenges such as:

• the emergence and re-emergence of diseases such as Mpox, COVID-19, polio, and avian influenza
• ongoing protracted emergencies and pandemics, such as HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis
• shortcomings in disease surveillance systems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries
• the disproportionate impact of health emergencies on marginalised groups such as refugees and culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Burnet has supported responses to health emergencies and pandemics in Australia and abroad.

Contributing to worldwide antimicrobial resistance surveillance

Burnet is the grantee of the Fleming Fund Country Grant. The Fleming Fund is a UK aid program that tackles antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Papua New Guinea. Our activities include helping establish an AMR surveillance system that feeds into the World Health Organization’s global AMR database, GLASS.

Adapting existing surveillance systems for new threats

Burnet is a lead implementing partner in ACCESS (Australian Collaboration for Coordinated Enhanced Sentinel Surveillance of Sexually Transmissible Infections and Blood Borne Viruses). During a global outbreak of the mpox virus in 2022, we rapidly adapted ACCESS’s surveillance platform to monitor mpox in Australia. We have also adapted ACCESS to monitor HIV in Myanmar, including trends from diagnosis to treatment.

Informing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Our COVID-19 modelling directly informed public health policy in Victoria during the pandemic. Our Optimise Study helped guide Victoria’s approach to COVID-19. It aimed to prevent new infections and reduce the health, social and economic impacts of restriction and prevention measures. The findings informed equity-based approaches.

TIGER C19 is a collaboration between Burnet Institute and the University of Melbourne. Short for ‘Timely Integration of user-GEnerated Responses to COVID-19', the approach combines big data analytics of social media posts with qualitative research methods. The monthly reports generated were invaluable in understanding community responses to COVID-19 policy and practice. The TIGER methodology and approach is applicable to other health emergencies and public health issues.

Community partnerships

Burnet worked with groups such as the North East Multicultural Association and Language Loop and the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria to improve emergency communications as part of the VOICE partnership.  

Burnet’s approach is grounded in equity. Our projects focus on ensuring no one is left behind during a health emergency.

This includes: 

• advocating for equitable access to health products across all countries. 

• ensuring public health messages reach all communities by using appropriate language and formats.  

• drawing on the lived experience of communities to design effective interventions. 

• recognising and addressing the issues that make certain groups of people vulnerable in times of crisis.