Vaccinations for healthy ageing in adults
65 years and older

Professor Paul Van Buynder is a Public Health Physician and the immediate past Chairman of the Australia Immunisation Coalition. He holds an appointment as a Professor in the School of Medicine at Griffith University in Queensland. He is a member of the expert panel of the International Federation on Ageing.

He has held senior public health positions in a number of Australian states, in two Canadian jurisdictions and at the Centre for Infections in the United Kingdom. He has held personal appointments on sub-committees of National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups in three continents.

He is a reviewer for over 10 journals and a supervisor of postgraduate research students.

His activity responding to disasters has led to an Australian Government Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal and a NSW Government Premier’s meritorious service award. He has been listed in Who’s Who in the World.

His research interests include vaccine effectiveness studies with new enhanced vaccines, the use of anti-virals in outbreaks in residential care and the evaluation of programs and marketing to maximise vaccine coverage. He has written more than 60 refereed book chapters and articles.

COMPETING INTERESTS: Professor Van Buynder has conducted clinical research on vaccine effectiveness of adjuvanted vaccines via an unrestricted grant from Novartis. He has also received support for research, education and marketing, travel and/or advisory board activities from Seqirus, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Pfizer and Novartis.

Associate Professor John Litt is Associate Professor in the Discipline of General Practice at Flinders University and was the Deputy Chairman of the National Quality Committee of the RACGP (from 2000-2018). He is also a public health physician. His teaching activities focussed on co-ordinating the teaching of general practice and arranging placement for medical students in the Flinders University medical course.

His major clinical and research interests are in prevention and its implementation. He has over 100 refereed publications (journal articles, book and book chapters) including coauthorship of the Smoking Cessation Guidelines for Australian General Practice and its updates and the RACGP Guidelines for Preventive Activities in General Practice.

He has been a member of several national committees, consortia and Scientific Advisory Committees including NHMRC, Cancer Australia, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance and Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men’s Health.

He has been the leading driver of the RACGP Green Book, Putting Prevention into Practice: Guidelines for the Implementation of Prevention in the General Practice Setting. The latest (3rd) edition was released in 2018.

COMPETING INTERESTS: Associate Professor Litt has received funds for sitting on advisory boards for Seqirus and GlaxoSmithKline and speaker’s fees from Seqirus when providing educational updates on zoster vaccination for a range of healthcare providers.