ASID welcomes the Australian Government’s commitment to establish a national Centre for Disease Control in Australia
The Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID) has welcomed the commitment from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to establish a national Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Australia.
Australia is the only OECD country without a CDC or equivalent and we have long been advocating [1] for a central organisation to lead a federated and coordinated response to infectious diseases threats. This should include the resources and expertise to coordinate both surveillance and action to detect, mitigate and manage infectious diseases in Australia.
ASID is urging the government to undertake extensive consultation to determine the optimal models of a CDC that co-ordinates surveillance and response collaboratively across all states and territories and supports similar activities occurring in the Asia-Pacific region.
A process to determine the scope, roles and responsibilities, governance and resourcing should commence as soon as possible.
The model should be informed by Australia’s recent experiences with COVID-19, but also factor in long-term issues (including antimicrobial resistance and notifiable diseases) and recently emerging issues (including Japanese encephalitis and monkeypox).
It is important that this is accompanied by a budget commitment to a new CDC that increases over the forward estimates.
References
[1] Please refer to https://www.asid.net.au/resources/advocacy-and-media for previous statements made by ASID.
