Professor Christopher Fairley

EXPERTISE

  • Public Health & Epidemiology
  • Public health control of sexually transmitted diseases
  • Effectiveness of clinical services

Professor Fairley's principal research interests are the public health control of sexually transmitted diseases and the effectiveness of clinical services.

Christopher Fairley (AO) has revolutionised thinking in sexual health demonstrating that HPV infections were sexually transmitted and that the lack of access to health care was the major driver of STI epidemics, as evidenced in Indigenous Australian communities. Christopher's research has focused on efficiency and high-risk individuals, and the implementation of programs to increase prophylaxis, diagnosis and treatment to reduce the incidence of STIs such as chlamydia and HIV. His work on the recent outbreak of meningococcal illness among men who have sex with men in Melbourne led to Victoria offering free meningococcal vaccinations for all men who have sex with men in the state. For Christopher, the main challenges now facing sexual health are convincing governments to increase Sexual Health funding, and the impact of increasing antibiotic resistance in Sexually Transmitted disease.

Christopher is the Director of the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and Professor of Public Health at Monash University. He holds three specialist medical fellowships from the College of Physicians (Infectious Diseases), Faculty of Public Health and Chapter of Sexual Health Medicine. He is an editor of the Journal ‘Sexual Health’. His principal research interests are the public health control of sexually transmitted diseases and the effectiveness of clinical services. Professor Christopher received the Eureka Prize for Infectious Disease Research (2022). He has supervised 33 doctoral students to completion. He has 747 review journal publications and sits on the boards of IUSTI and ISSTDR. In 2018 he was awarded an AO, the FRACP Eric Susman prize and elected to the Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in recognition for his work. Lancet ID profiled him ‘Kit Fairley; a pioneer in STI research’ in April 2018.

AMR FOCUS

  • Optimising the control and management of sexually transmitted infections through research and innovation.
  • Sexual health team readiness to react to new problems—such as the increasing cases of drug-resistant Mycoplasma genitalium in Australia.
  • Accessibility to Healthcare and other social factors influencing STI epidemiology.
  • Antibiotic treatment of male partners to reduce recurrence of bacterial vaginosis in women: pilot project.
  • Discovering modes of pathogen transmission.

IMPACT

  • Reduction of STI transmission within the community.