Give a warm welcome to Professor Allen Cheng, our new Director of Infectious Diseases. Allen will be joining the Public Health and Community team and working alongside Professor Rhonda Stuart, Director of Infection Protection and Epidemiology.
“It’s a great opportunity to come to Monash Health,” says Allen. “It’s exciting to be part of the care for a diverse and large community. I calculated it’s something like 26 kilometres from the Victorian Heart Hospital to Casey and there’s more than a million people in our catchment area.”
Professor Cheng has been Director of Infection Prevention and Healthcare Epidemiology at Alfred Health and Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. Prior to working at Alfred Health, Professor Cheng worked as an infectious diseases physician in regional centres like Darwin and Geelong, and overseas in Thailand, Papua New Guinea, the United States and Finland.
“Diseases are different in different parts of the world,” Allen explains. “That diversity is what makes this specialty so interesting. The causes are different for a person presenting with a fever in Thailand or North America or other parts of Australia, even before you think about the individual patient.”
Allen has also played a major role during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Co-Chair of ATAGI until the end of 2021, Chair of the Advisory Committee of Vaccines for the TGA, and as an expert advisor to the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee.
During 2020 and 2021, he was seconded to the Victorian Department of Health as Deputy Chief Health Officer, alongside Professor Rhonda Stuart.
“We actually started on the same day in the Department of Health,” Allen says. “It was great to have Rhonda to share that experience with. People who get things done were brought into the health department from all over, like Jerome Weimar from transport, and it was a really impressive team.”
Infectious diseases were thrust into the spotlight by COVID-19, and so was Professor Cheng.
“I was having to give frequent press conferences, which is an unusual place for a clinician” he recalls. “The sole focus of government was on the pandemic. As infectious diseases physicians, we’re taught about the 1918 pandemic, but that’s not in living memory for all of us. Since COVID-19, no one’s under any illusions about how infectious diseases can affect everything we do.”
Professor Cheng says he’s excited for the future of the Infectious Diseases service at Monash Health.
“The service has been built up over a long period of time,” Allen says. “I’m hoping to strengthen the research program, particularly in clinical research, and to work closely with the public health unit. I think these are areas where Monash Health has an advantage over a lot of places.”
Allen’s research interests include influenza and vaccine effectiveness, clinical trials and biostatistics, clinical infectious diseases, and antimicrobial resistance and infection prevention.
“Another thing I’m excited about is being part of a service that looks after a community,” says Allen. “We’re who the community turns to when there are infections, and I want to build that engagement with the community.”
Please say hello and make Professor Cheng feel welcome!
