The seaside suburb of Rye on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula is an endemic region for Buruli Ulcer. That’s why Laurence Berto volunteered to be on a world-first clinical trial to test the effectiveness of a new treatment. He’s the region’s first teletrial participant testing a specific antibiotic, which now has 16 local participants.
Barwon Health’s Infectious Diseases Unit, in collaboration with the Clinical Trials Unit, have set up a teletrial satellite site at Sorrento Medical Clinic under the Australian Teletrial Program. That means community members can take part without having to travel to the city. Instead of a 170km trip across Melbourne in heavy traffic, or a two-hour journey including a ferry across the bay to Geelong, locals can access the trial in Sorrento.
Director of Barwon Health’s Infectious Disease department, Professor Daniel O’Brien hopes that “through this clinical trial Buruli Ulcer treatment will be significantly shorter, require only one antibiotic, be safer and more tolerable, and result in significantly shorter healing times for BU lesions.”
Find out more about the clinical trial here, or research at Barwon Health, Victoria here
Picture: Trial participant Laurence Berto (left) with Principal Investigator Professor Daniel O’Brien (right) at Sorrento Medical Centre.
