Holocaust survivor Yvonne Engelman's lasting legacy
Holocaust survivor Yvonne Engelman's lasting legacy
Published 28 May 2025, 8:39 am
One of Australia's last remaining holocaust survivors has died, aged 98. Yvonne Engelman was her family's sole survivor. As a young girl she narrowly escaped death in Auschwitz. She dedicated her life to educating people on strength and resilience.
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Diagnosing scabies in the Pacific could get easier and faster, saving lives
ABC: podcast. You're listening to Pacific Pulse on ABC Radio Australia. Matthew Paxman: Part of the issue with scabies is you get these tiny little skin lesions and also through all the extra scratching your skin's inflamed. So you can get bacterial infections through the skin. Melissa Maykin: Have you ever had to scrub and lather to get rid of those relentless little mites called scabies? Australian scientists are now developing a world first rapid test that can spot scabies in just 10 to 20 minutes, no lab needed, and it even detects common bacterial skin infections. Scabies is a huge public health headache across the Pacific, with around 18 to 20% of people in Fiji, Solomon Islands and other places affected, especially children. For those who can't get rid of the mites, scabies can link to serious complications like secondary infections, heart and kidney disease. Thanks to Melbourne, Australia's Zip Diagnostics and trials held in Darwin, this portable battery powered test could revolutionise how remote communities fight this itchy, neglected tropical disease. To dive into the science, I'm speaking to the company's Scientific Director, Associate Professor Jack Richards, and the company's PhD Research Assistant, Matthew Paxman. Associate Professor Jack Richards: Look, it's an interesting disease in many regards. And so it's been of interest to us, firstly because it's actually a really common disease. It's all throughout the world, and estimates are in the range of 200 to even 500 million cases per year of this disease globally. So it's a very common disease. It's highly prevalent through the Pacific. So some of the countries that have the highest rates of this in the world are in the Pacific. So I think Fijian Vanuatu was recently identified as in the top five countries of the world. It has a huge impact on the quality of life for people. It's actually caused by a mite, a little insect that actually burrows into the skin. And actually, these burrows cause an inflammatory and allergic response and intense itching. So people that get these infections with scabies mites have a huge impact on their life because they're constantly itching, this through the day and the night, and it's unrelenting. That's sort of the impact of it. And then they also are highly at risk of getting secondary bacterial infections, which can be either localised in those same areas because of all the scratching, or they can actually spread and cause bloodstream infections and septicemia, and even special infections of the heart called rheumatic heart disease. From seemingly innocuous little insect that lives on the skin and burrows in the skin, you've got this huge impact globally on health and just the way of life of people. So we think that's a really important issue to deal with. It's what we call a neglected tropical disease because most people in the world are not interested in really dealing with it or don't have the resources to look at this disease because it really occurs in areas of remote communities and low to middle income countries. The people that suffer the most are the poorest people in the world and often don't have the resources and access to health services. Despite being really common and having a huge impact on their life, not many people are helping to address this issue. Yeah, that's sort of part of the reason. And the other one is really that the diagnostics themselves are very poor. Generally speaking, the current approach to this is that healthcare professionals have a look at somebody's skin and they usually make their best guess of whether this is scabies or not. And in some cases, if they've got access to a laboratory or a microscope, they might send off some skin scrapings and try and identify this scabies insect under the microscope. So we think we can offer something to that. Melissa Maykin: Yeah, that's really another side of this whole issue. So what you talked about having secondary illnesses as a result of the scabies, are you able just to explain quickly what happens in the body due to that infection and the kind of secondary issues that can arise? Associate Professor Jack Richards: Yeah, sure. Matt, do you want to? Matthew Paxman: Yeah. So part of the issue with scabies is you get these tiny little skin lesions and also through all the extra scratching, your skin's inflamed. So you can get bacterial infections through the skin from that. So particularly group A strep and staphylococcus aureus, these two bacteria that can grow and cause infections on the skin. So that potentially could cause more severe types of skin lesions, but sometimes they can go deeper into the tissue, into the bloodstream and cause some severe complications like rheumatic fever, rheumatic heart disease, Jack said before. And you get issues such as sepsis and toxic shock, but these conditions are potentially life threatening. So it's really important to control scabies to make sure these bacterias are getting through. The skin needs to stay intact to keep these bacteria that is sometimes commensally on the skin outside of your internal system. Melissa Maykin: Mm. No, thank you for that. It's really good to keep it at layman's level for not just myself, but for anyone who's really not too aware of the kind of health science behind scabies. But I was always of the belief that scabies was contracted from animals. So what carries scabies? Where does it mostly spread from? Matthew Paxman: So animals are affected by scabies as well, but humans won't generally get scabies from an animal. Scabies transmits through skin to skin contact with another infested person. And sometimes the scabies can actually survive on materials like the bed sheets or fabrics. So you need to have your skin exposed to a fertilized mite to contract scabies from another human. So that's why overcrowding is a major risk factor for this disease. Not necessarily hygiene, it's just that close skin to skin contact that causes these high level of transmission in overcrowded regions. Melissa Maykin: Thank you. So just jumping forward to the diagnostic test, are you able to just explain how this tool works? Matthew Paxman: Yeah, so we're looking at molecular diagnostics. So the difference with molecular diagnostics compared to the current diagnostic methods for scabies is we're trying to detect the genetic material of the mites or the particles that they leave behind on the body. So the previous methods, as we mentioned, involves trying to look at the skin and see evidence of mites or eggs. But with the molecular test, it would be a standardized sampling method. Essentially what we're doing is we're adopting the LAMP technique, which is a nucleic acid amplification system called loop-mediated isothermal amplification. So in concept, it's similar to PCR, but it tends to be faster and more specific. And the big benefit of LAMP is you can run it at one single temperature. So that means the instruments that it can run on can be simpler, more portable, and able to be implemented into these resource limited settings that we're really interested in. So that's what we're doing at the moment is we're designing the LAMP assay. So all the constituents that go into it. And then another important aspect is we're trying to design a simplified sample preparation workflow that so any untrained users, healthcare workers, will be able to easily process and run the tests. Melissa Maykin: Yeah, fantastic. I can't really visualize it at the moment, but what does it look like? Yeah, if you're standing in the lab, you're about to run some tests on the scabies. Matthew Paxman: I can, I have some things right next to me. This might not be that relevant for radio, but this is instruments. So at Zip Diagnostics, we have a point of care diagnostic platform called the P2. So it's this instrument here. It's got a touchscreen that provides all the prompts to do the steps. And essentially, our tests are these little lyophilized cartridges. So that's got the LAMP assay in there. And you're going to be able to process the sample on this deck and set up the test and run it within this little light, small, portable instrument. This is a platform approved by the TGA. So we can use it for clinical purposes here in Australia and can probably talk about elsewhere. Yeah, Associate Professor Jack Richards: and Matt's raised some really important points there. Where this disease occurs is in these remote settings in most cases, and they can be really far away from laboratory services. And so it's really important that we take the test to the people that have it. And what Matt's showing us here is a test, which is small, it's very portable, can run off a battery. And it really makes use of the best technology that we've got in the world to detect the DNA of these organisms. So it's a highly sensitive test. And yeah, and it's got to be highly usable for the people that are going to operate this in these environments. And so it's got to be a simple test to run. And it's also got to have components to the test which don't require cold chain supply. So it's no good being in these environments where there's no refrigeration or freezing access. So we have these freeze dried components to the assay which allow it to be then deployed and stored out in those environments. You're ABC: listening to Pacific Pulse on ABC Radio Australia. Melissa Maykin: On the show today, you're hearing from Dr. Jack Richards from Zip Diagnostics and PhD researcher and research assistant, Matthew Paxman. We're talking about a groundbreaking new SCABES test. In 2022, Solomon Islands became the first country to distribute ivermectin to its entire population to tackle SCABES, a disease that affects one in four people there and is linked to serious infections like blood poisoning and kidney disease. The ABC's Jordan Fennell had this report. Prianka Srinivasan ABC: Solomon Islands has become the first country in the world to have the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin distributed to its entire population to treat SCABES. The drug attracted controversy during the pandemic after it was linked to coronavirus misinformation. But as Jordan Fennell reports, health experts are optimistic about the success of the rollout. Jordan Fennell: In a clinic in Honiara, patients are furiously scratching themselves. Oliver Sokana: SCABES is quite distemping in any way we try to describe it. But they will spend time in itching and scratching the body and try to get themselves to feel comfortable. It's really distemping. Jordan Fennell: Oliver Sakana from the Solomon Islands Ministry of Health is overseeing the rollout of ivermectin to treat SCABES. He estimates they're helping more than 200 people a day. Oliver Sokana: That means we already treated more than 5,000 people in provinces that they already started. Jordan Fennell: In a country with a population of more than 680,000 people, one in four suffer from the skin disease. But relief from the pain will come quickly. Just two doses of ivermectin over the space of a week will get rid of SCABES. Sarah Anderson: Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug and SCABES is a parasite. And so the ivermectin works to actually kill the little SCABE mite that has dug under the skin and made its home in somebody's skin. Sarah Jordan Fennell: Anderson is the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's World SCABES Program Manager. She says it's not just a disease that makes you itchy. If left untreated, it can lead to serious consequences. Sarah Anderson: So it can lead to very serious skin infections. As kids start scratching the SCABES, the skin breaks and then infection can get into the skin. And then that has been shown to be able to lead to very serious bacterial skin infections, but also to blood infections. And there's also a connection to kidney disease and heart disease. Jordan Fennell: During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, ivermectin became a controversial drug when former US President Donald Trump urged people to use it to treat coronavirus, but doctors were advising against it. Ms Anderson says while it might not be effective to deal with COVID, for years it has worked to treat antiparasitic diseases like SCABES. Sarah Anderson: Ivermectin for the use of SCABES and other parasites has long been researched and shown to be effective in very, very good trials. Jordan Fennell: She says this distribution project in Solomon Islands is the result of more than 10 years of research and aims to give everyone in the country a treatment of ivermectin to stop the transmission over the next few months. Oliver Sukarna says his team of thousands are working hard to deliver the medicine. We Oliver Sokana: have the evidence. We have the evidence that SCABES is really a public health problem in Solomon Islands. So this MDA rollout is very significant in the control of SCABES in this country. Jordan Fennell: A similar rollout will go ahead in Fiji in September, and if they're able to get more funding, Ms Anderson hopes to take the life-changing treatment to more Pacific countries. Sarah Anderson: SCABES tends to be kind of like the disease that doesn't get a lot of attention. It definitely is an area where we would love to see more people joining this sort of mission to get rid of SCABES. Melissa Maykin: And that's what we're talking about today. That was Sarah Anderson, Murdoch Children's Research Institute World SCABES Program Manager, ending that report by Jordan Fennell for Pacific Beat. But a new diagnostic tool to detect SCABES early is in the works and could be a game changer for Pacific nations and their communities. Here's Zip Diagnostics Associate Professor Jack Richards. Associate Professor Jack Richards: So it's not as simple as just making a widget that just gets thrown at people. What we really want to do is work with communities and work with local experts and stakeholders just to really understand the setting and the need that they've got and the capability that they've got. We want to design this to be a test that's really suitable for them in those environments. So we're just beginning that process now. We're working with a great team up at Menzies who do a lot of work with First Nations communities up in the top end of Australia and beginning to liaise with people across the Pacific. We've done lots of work with PNG in the past and Fiji and Vanuatu. And so we're going to really continue that work to make sure that this test is actually designed and is appropriate for use in those settings. And I think a diagnosis does several things. One is, at the moment, you've got this situation between a patient and a healthcare professional where both of them are trying to make their best guess. Is this scabies or is it something else? Is it a mosquito bite or is it an allergic reaction eczema or something like that? And it creates a really difficult dynamic in the clinical decision making process because there's uncertainty. So one of the aspects of bringing a test like this in is we want data driven clinical decision making and that's a process that occurs between the patient and the healthcare professional. So the patient gets better data and is a participant in a point of care setting of their own clinical management and having access to data that confirms the diagnosis really provides them an incentive to get on with treatment and to complete treatment. And that's actually really important and it's particularly important for scabies. The treatment usually takes the form of a cream, as you mentioned, and that cream is an anti insecticide sort of cream that's applied usually from the neck down to the feet. So it's actually quite a tricky one to apply. Melissa Maykin: It is, yeah. Associate Professor Jack Richards: It's not that fun. You've got to douse yourself literally from head to toe in this cream and usually sit it out for overnight generally and then get up in the morning and wash it all off again. That's the most common form of treatment and usually you've got to back that up with a second round of that treatment one to two weeks later. There is a form of treatment that you can use, which is a tablet, but that's not always available in some of these settings. That's a little bit easier to administer, but it again also requires a sort of follow up dose. So you can see for both of these, having knowledge that this is the disease that you've got and therefore the need to do this sort of treatment because it is laborious can actually really help with doing that treatment course properly. Melissa Maykin: Yeah. Save a lot of people's time and resources going straight to what they know is needed to be done. And yeah, my friend did have to douse herself in the cream. The most tedious part was when she missed a spot and then the scabies didn't go away. So she had to just keep doing it on repeat until she hits. It took months. I was really shocked by how difficult it was for her to get rid of it. And I guess there's also that social stigma too, of feeling quite dirty and quite infested with a disease. There's layers to the feeling of contracting something like that. This I'm sure is going to make a big difference for people to get on top of it really quickly. But maybe Matt, if you can answer this, what other types of common skin infections has this also helped detect? Matthew Paxman: So for our test, we're also going to be designing targets that will detect the two main bacterial infections that often go along with scabies. So that's group A strep and Staph aureus. These are bacteria that commonly are pathogenic to humans, but sometimes they just live on the skin and not cause issues. But then with the scabies, you get the lesions and they can enter your system and cause some severe diseases. So it will be the same sample. So you will only have to take samples or inspect the patient once. A lot of the other diagnostic methods sometimes overlook bacterial infections because if your patient comes in and they're complaining about severe itching, they might not be looking for bacterial infections. So it's really important to be able to diagnose those because they require a different treatment than scabies. So in scabies, you'll need antimicrobial sort of medicines or creams in that case. Melissa Maykin: And a little side to this, I was talking to Dr. Mark Jacobs, World Health Organization, maybe last year about the rise of antimicrobial resistance. It's especially an issue, I guess, in the region, in the Pacific, where antibiotics is scarce. The right antibiotics isn't often administered. Are you working around antibiotics in this way? And is this something that you have to be aware of? Associate Professor Jack Richards: Yeah, it's a really important issue and it's becoming increasingly problematic globally. And it's driven by lots of different factors. But one of the factors is, as you're saying, the lack of diagnostics to really guide, do we need antibiotics in this instance or not? Are we making the right decision to give this patient antibiotics? And more particularly, are we giving the right antibiotics when we do that? And obviously, the best information we can have is, yes, there's this infection here and it is susceptible to this particular antibiotic. So we've even chosen the right antibiotic for this particular bug. So they're the sort of aspirations that we have. And part of that will be part of this test as we develop it. Melissa Maykin: Yeah, great. What happens next now that you've developed this test? Where are things at for you guys? Associate Professor Jack Richards: It's still under development. So it's in the early phases of the development. So Matt is doing the design of that at the moment and making good progress. So we're about to start doing some initial clinical studies with the collaborators that we've got at the Menzies in Darwin so that we can really start to understand if this test is working properly. And then we, as an Australian company, the first Australian company to ever get a point of care molecular test approved by the TGA. So we're going to use all of those learnings and that effort that we put into making this test in Australia. So we're really proud of being able to do that and have Australian made products like this that hopefully are globally important products. And so, yeah, keep people up to date over the next year or two as this goes through the formal clinical studies and the regulatory approval processes. It's a fair journey, obviously, to get these things into use for humans. Melissa Maykin: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Matt, was there anything, did you have any comment about how you guys are tracking? Matthew Paxman: Not too much extra than what Jack said. Melissa Maykin: Yeah, that's okay. I just might ask you, Matthew, because this is a PhD area of yours, if I can ask, I guess what fascinates you most about this area? I think you contribute hugely to communities that are very much in need. But yeah, you're able to share just finally a little bit about what drives your motivation in this area of research. Matthew Paxman: So my original study, I was trained as like a biochemist and working at Zip Diagnostics, I've got involved with looking at infectious diseases and different pathogens. And that's really fascinated me. And one area that I was excited about was having a look at different bacterial infections. And then I was pretty naive to scabies before this project started, which makes sense. It's a neglected disease. People in these remote communities know about it, but in other areas, it's not very widely discussed. So it was really interesting, a really interesting disease and really important with this like hidden, massive global prevalence. So I thought it was really important. And I also very much appreciate how important these issues are to regions such as like Indigenous Australian populations and other sort of low middle income areas like the Pacific Islands and certain areas in Africa. So that really fascinates me. Melissa Maykin: A really big thank you to Associate Professor Jack Richards, the Scientific Director of Zip Diagnostics and Research Assistant and PhD candidate Matthew Paxman for their time on the show today. This has been Pacific Pulse with me, Melissa Makin. If you missed any part of this episode and you'd like to listen back, you can search for us on the ABC Pacific website at Pacific Pulse or find us on your favorite streaming platform. If you'd like to hear more conversations about health care in the Pacific, consider listening to the latest episode of PoliTalk with Scott Widear. Basic medications like paracetamol and antibiotics are very hard to come by in many Pacific countries at the moment, and this is leaving doctors and patients struggling under the strain of sickness. You can find them by searching for PoliTalk, P-O-L-I-T-O-K on the ABC Pacific website. This episode was produced on the lands of the Jagera and the Turrbal people.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Thousands on NSW elective surgery waitlists longer than recommended, data shows
Elective surgery waitlists in New South Wales have blown out, with a major increase in the number of overdue operations. The Bureau of Health Information (BHI) released its latest quarterly report for January-March 2025 which revealed 8,587 people waited longer for their surgery than clinically recommended. That is a rise of 151.3 per cent, or 5,170 patients, compared with the same period in 2024. "[That's] quite a substantial increase from the same time a year ago," BHI senior director Hilary Rowell said. Some of the patients who faced delays had been referred for the most urgent surgery, classified as category one, which is meant to be completed within 30 days. "There were five patients in the urgent category who were overdue for their surgery," Ms Rowell said. The report also revealed 3,464 people waited longer than recommended for their semi-urgent surgery which is meant to be completed within 90 days. Among those who were ready to undergo non-urgent operations — due to be done within one year — 5,118 were overdue for their surgery. The majority of NSW's local health districts (LHDs) reported an increase in the number of surgical patients waiting longer than clinically recommended. South Eastern Sydney LHD recorded the highest rise, with 1,657 people facing delays — an increase of 1,338 on the same period in 2024. Western Sydney LHD reported an increase of 1,023 — resulting in 1,350 people waiting longer than they should. Sydney Children's Hospital Network had 253 overdue surgeries, which is a rise of 164. The Hunter New England LHD experienced the biggest hike amongst regional LHDs, with 1,249 waiting longer than they should — an increase of 720. Nepean Blue Mountains LHD was the only health service which saw a decrease. There were 188 people waiting for their overdue operations at the end of the quarter — a decline of 230 from 418 in the January-March quarter of 2024. The report came after surgeons at Orange Health Service (OHS) revealed they had been asked to reduce the urgency category of cancer operations so they do not breach waitlist targets. The Western NSW LHD rejected the claims. The latest figures show 38 people waited longer at OHS than they should during the latest quarter which is an increase of 38 on the same period last year. The BHI report showed that almost 53,000 surgeries were performed during the quarter, up 3.6 per cent. Despite this increase, there were 100,678 people still on the waitlist at the end of the quarter — a rise of 7.3 per cent. This is just below the record peak of 101,024 reported during the COVID pandemic. "We saw the list gradually decrease down to the end of 2023 and then we've seen it gradually ticking up since then," Ms Rowell said. Australian Medical Association NSW vice president Fred Betros said extra resources were added to clear the backlog of patients waiting longer than the maximum time clinically recommended after the pandemic, including sending patients to the private sector. The number of patients waiting longer than clinically recommended fell to 1,857 patients in the second quarter of last year. "The problem is our increased commitment of resources is being exceeded by the rate of growth," he said. Dr Betros said many specialists are working in the private sector where they can earn more money. "One of the perpetual problems we have right now in the public sector is certainly for elective surgery, is lack of anaesthetists who are willing to work in the public sector," he said. NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the government was investing $23 million to reduce overdue surgeries as part of the 2025-26 budget. The funding would go to engaging more staff, purchasing more consumables, expanding weekend theatre rostering and engaging private providers. He said he expects this investment — combined with $186.4 million for hospital capacity announced in December — will begin to "bear fruit over the next quarter". However, the minister pointed to challenges that contributed to the increase, including ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred that disrupted services in northern NSW and the Mid North Coast alongside a rise in chronic illness, longer life expectancy as well as workforce availability challenges. "We made significant progress in reducing the overdue surgeries that we inherited, down from 14,000. But we know there's always more that we can do to improve the accessibility of planned surgeries," Mr Park said. "The health system is always going to be under pressure, particularly with elective surgery. We have got it down low, we're seeing a creep up now." He previously established a Surgical Care Taskforce to improve the delivery of surgical services and reduce elective waitlists. When it first met in May 2023, Mr Park said he wanted it to "look at measures to reduce the backlog of elective surgeries". The BHI's latest report also presents data on attendances to public hospital emergency departments (ED). Between January and March there were 785,266 people who went to an ED, which is a decline of 3.1 per cent on the same period last year. The BHI said fewer patients with non-urgent conditions were presenting to emergency. "Within that we did see that EDs are continuing to see a reduction in patients with the less urgent clinical conditions, so those are the moderate triage category four patients, down 6 per cent, and the non-urgent triage category five patients which were down 12 per cent," Ms Rowell said.
News.com.au
7 hours ago
- News.com.au
Footage shows horror moment Qantas worker plunges 6m off aerobridge at Sydney Airport
The terrifying moment a Qantas worker fell five metres through a hole in an aerobridge at Sydney Airport has been released. Newly released footage shows customer service representative Olivia Hristovska approaching the side of the aerobridge to look onto the tarmac through the little windows that run along the side. She doesn't appear to notice the gaping hole below her feet where the side of the aerobridge has come away from the platform and as she walks closer she slips through. Another worker sees her fall and approaches the hole but is too late to help. Ms Hristovska was rushed to hospital with life-threatening head injuries after the fall last month. She was placed in an induced coma with a collapsed lung, several broken ribs, broken clavicle and pelvis, and fractured spine. She's since been released from hospital into the care of her adult two daughters and is still living with the impact of the head injury. 'Bones can heal, but the brain you don't know,' her daughter Monique Hristovska told 9News on Tuesday, 'She's lost her whole identity.' She described her mother's time in hospital as 'traumatic' and 'daunting' and said she initially learned the details of the incident through doctors and the media. 'We are truly sorry for the devastating incident that occurred to one of our team members at Sydney Airport last month and acknowledge the significant impact this has had on Olivia and her family,' he said. 'We have had a number of conversations and correspondence with Olivia's family since the day of the incident and have offered our full support through this incredibly difficult time. We are here to assist Olivia in any way we can through her recovery while also respecting her family's request for privacy during this stage of her recovery. 'Everyone at Qantas and Sydney Airport wants to know exactly what happened and we are supporting SafeWork NSW as it conducts a full investigation into the incident. 'In the meantime, both Qantas and Sydney Airport have put in place enhanced safety procedures and Qantas has engaged independent experts to look at how safety can be improved on aerobridges at airports around Australia and the world.'
