Communicable Diseases Intelligence

High rates of absenteeism in a North Queensland primary school, due to eye irritation, fever, headache, and stomach pain, were reported to the Tropical Public Health Unit in October 2000. Subsequent investigation demonstrated that the symptoms were due to adenovirus infection. Symptoms were consistent with a diagnosis of pharyngoconjunctival fever. At the height of the outbreak, about 40 per cent of students were absent. There was a strong association between the development of symptoms, and having been swimming on a recent school camp...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Of 134 Queensland passengers on a cruise, 91 (67.9%) people reported various illnesses including 41 (30.6%) who reported diarrhoeal symptoms. Queensland passengers who ate while onshore at non-Australian ports were significantly more at risk of developing diarrhoeal symptoms than those who did not. Passengers were particularly at risk when they ate onshore while undertaking a tour compared with those who did not undertake this tour. Travellers should be warned of the possibility of contracting diarrhoeal illness from onshore catering...

Evidence concerning the effectiveness of Oka-based varicella vaccines when administered following exposure to varicella zoster virus in domestic and hospital settings is reviewed. The evidence appears to support post-exposure use of Oka-derived varicella vaccines in children within 3 days of rash onset in the index case. Despite vaccination, a small proportion will develop mild, but infectious, chickenpox, especially if they have been exposed in the household setting. Controlled studies of post-exposure prophylaxis in adults using both Varilrix and Varivax II are still needed...

An outbreak of laboratory confirmed measles involving 30 young adults and an infant is reported. Of the young adult cases, 17 (57%) were hospitalised. After a trip to India, the primary case returned to Sydney early in January 2001 and then visited Melbourne infecting several individuals. Secondary spread appears to have occurred at a nightclub. On the basis of RNA typing the measles strain involved is of genotype 'D'.

Since the inception of the National Mycobacterial Surveillance System (NMSS) in 1991, annual crude notification rates for tuberculosis have remained stable at between 5 and 6 per 100,000 population. In 1998, there was a total of 923 TB notifications in Australia of which 884 were new TB cases, and 39 relapsed cases. The corresponding annual crude notification rate for new and relapsed TB was 4.72 and 0.21 per 100,000 respectively. Seventy-seven percent of notifications that had a country of birth reported were overseas born...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Syphilis rates in the Kimberley region of far-northern Western Australia are among the highest in the nation. In 1986, a formal program of periodic syphilis screening was established. Decreasing syphilis rates since the early 1990s prompted, in 1999, re-evaluation of the value of periodic screening. All confirmed cases of syphilis identified in the Kimberley between January 1996 and early December 1999 as a result of syphilis serology were classified by reason for the test and staged according to disease progression...

Laboratory-supported influenza surveillance is important as part of pandemic preparedness, for identifying and isolating candidate vaccine strains, for supporting trials of anti-influenza drugs and for refining the influenza surveillance case definition in practice. This study describes the implementation of laboratory-supported influenza surveillance in Victorian sentinel general practices and provides an estimate of the proportion of patients with an influenza-like illness proven to have influenza. During 1998 and 1999, 25 sentinel general practices contributed clinical surveillance data and 16 metropolitan practices participated in laboratory surveillance...

In late 1999, an outbreak of Bordetella pertussis occurred in a small town in North-West Western Australia. We undertook an investigation to describe the outbreak and to identify strategies to minimise the impact of future pertussis outbreaks in Australia. In November, people with respiratory symptoms were reviewed in an emergency pertussis clinic, which provided antibiotic treatment or prophylaxis. We conducted a school survey to enhance case ascertainment and followed up those attending the clinic by telephone...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

We describe the epidemiological and clinical features of human Murray Valley encephalitis (MVE) and Kunjin (KUN) virus infections in Western Australia (WA) during March to July 2000. A case series was performed. For laboratory-confirmed cases, travel histories and clinical details were collected from patients, family members, friends or treating physicians. Surveillance data from the sentinel chicken program and climatic conditions were reviewed. Nine encephalitic cases of MVE were recorded. Eight were non-Aboriginal adults (age range, 25 to 79 years; 5 male, 3 female) and 1 was an Aboriginal boy...

In north Queensland the vector of dengue fever (Aedes aegypti) is present; hence any viraemic individual importing dengue has the potential to transmit the disease locally. In early 2000 approximately 2,000 personnel returned from East Timor to Townsville, north Queensland. Seven importations of dengue occurred and individual cases were viraemic for up to 6 days in Townsville. No subsequent local transmission occurred. There were 3 cases each of dengue type 2 and dengue type 3. One case could not be serotyped...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

An outbreak of ciguatera fish poisoning in outer Melbourne in September 1997 was traced to a 16.2 kg Maori Wrasse fish imported into Victoria from Trunk Reef in Queensland. The outbreak involved 46 individuals attending a banquet at an Asian restaurant at which four different dishes prepared from the flesh and viscera of the fish were offered. In all 30 individuals consumed at least one of these dishes and all reported one or more symptoms, in the main gastrointestinal and/or in 18 cases neurological. Seventeen cases were seen in four different hospitals and nine were treated with parenteral mannitol therapy...

We report the emerging drug-resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae seen by the South Western Area Pathology Service (SWAPS) from 1 January 1990 to 31 July 2000. SWAPS performs all the pathology testing for the public hospitals in the South Western Sydney Area Health Service, which serves a population of 700,000; 120,000 separations occur at these hospitals annually. In all, 2,265 patients submitted specimens yielding S. pneumoniae. These included respiratory tract specimens, blood cultures, eye swabs and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)...

Contamination of a tank water supply system led to an outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul with 28 cases of gastroenteritis amongst over 200 workers at a large construction site. The outbreak was identified following notification of two salmonellosis cases by general practitioners from different towns during March 1999. The source of infection, contaminated drinking water, was identified through environmental sampling and confirmed by epidemiological investigations. Frogs and/or mice may have been the original source of the contamination...

Enhanced surveillance of invasive meningococcal disease commenced in Queensland in 1999. There were 93 cases, an incidence of 2.8/100,000 population. Most (87%) cases were laboratory confirmed, but 12 per cent were probable cases without laboratory confirmation. The highest age-specific attack rates were in the under 1, 1 to 4 and 15 to 24 year age groups. Most of the serologically characterised isolates were group B (70%), followed by group C (24%). There were 12 deaths, resulting in a case fatality rate of 13 per cent...