Thursday September 11, 2025
Meet Laurence, Barwon Health’s first satellite site participant on the world-first clinical trial to test the effectiveness of a new specific antibiotic called Telacebec in the treatment of Buruli Ulcer.
Laurence is from the beautiful seaside suburb of Rye on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, which is an endemic region for Buruli Ulcer. However, this meant either a 170 km drive across Melbourne or a 2 hour trip including a ferry ride across the bay to access the trial at Barwon Health in Geelong.
Given the need of the community, Barwon Health’s Infectious Diseases Unit in collaboration with the Clinical Trials Unit has set up a satellite site at the Sorrento Medical Clinic under the Australian Teletrial Program. The Clinical Trial Unit staff travel to the satellite site to treat participants closer to their homes, and since opening the site in August 2025 the team has already offered this trial to 11 members of the local community!
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.”
Image: Trial participant Laurence (left) with Principal Investigator Professor Daniel O’Brien (right) at Sorrento Medical Centre.
To know more about the clinical trial click here
To know more about the Australian Teletrial Program click here