Almost half of all Aboriginal children in remote Australia are affected by a skin infection at any one time.
It is a statistic The Kids Research Institute Australia researcher Dr Asha Bowen is determined to change and thanks to a $1 million funding grant from the WA government, Asha is on track to achieve her goal.
The money will help fund a research project Asha is leading which aims to research better ways to treat skin conditions like skin sores and scabies.
Asha says skin infections are not only itchy and uncomfortable in the short term but they can lead to serious and life threatening diseases like kidney disease and rheumatic heart disease.
Finding better ways to treat these conditions will therefore improve the overall health of children in Western Australia's Kimberley region.
"I first became interested in this area of research when I was working as a paediatrician in Darwin," Asha says.
"Many of my patients would have skin infections that often had not been recognised or treated. When skin infection is common and recurrent, and is not the only health problem, it may get ignored and this can result in complications such as bone infections, kidney or even heart disease."
The Kids Research Institute Australia Head of Aboriginal Research Development Glenn Pearson, who will help guide the study, says skin conditions can have a devastating impact on a young person's health.
"Untreated skin infections are the entry point for bacteria to cause blood poisoning (sepsis), kidney and heart disease," he says.
"We urgently need to address this high burden of infection with new treatments to stop kids infecting each other and to reduce the lifelong burden of kidney and rheumatic heart disease."
The research team aims to reduce the skin infection rate in Kimberley children by at least 50%.
"I don't want to see in my lifetime that the burden of this disease hasn't changed," Asha said. "These kids deserve to be healthy and we're determined to help them achieve that through our research."
The Kids Research Institute Australia Researchers will collaborate with health services in the Kimberley for this study, which has been funded for three years through the FutureHealthWA program.
It is hoped that this study will shine light on new strategies that can be used across the country to help manage skin infections.