Decline in Diphtheria Cases Following Vaccination Drive
The Northern Territory government has reported a decline in diphtheria cases following a large-scale vaccination campaign that saw over 10,000 residents immunised against the disease. Authorities have confirmed that the ongoing outbreak has already resulted in one death.
Speaking to the media, NT Health Minister Steve Edgington revealed that there have been 163 reported diphtheria cases in the territory, with 115 of those being skin infections and 48 being the more severe respiratory form of the illness.
NT Chief Health Officer Paul Burgess noted that case numbers had significantly dropped from as many as 22 new reports each week at the peak of the outbreak to just nine cases in the past seven days.
“We’ve done a mountain of work in terms of improving our vaccination rates. I can tell you today that in the last seven weeks alone, more than 10,000 vaccines are in arms protecting Territorians against diphtheria,” he said.
“That’s a fantastic effort in a short period of time and shows great participation and partnership approach between our colleagues at Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory and community-controlled health services and NT Health clinics.”
Mr Edgington emphasized that while the numbers are decreasing, the situation is still serious and requires continued efforts to eliminate the illness, which was once considered largely eradicated in Australia.
“The numbers are declining [but] we’re far from out of the woods. What we are doing is focusing on working right across the Northern Territory in partnership with the Aboriginal community-controlled organisations to get on top of diphtheria,” he said.
One Death Confirmed, Second Ruled Out
Dr Burgess revealed that the death of a man in Darwin in the past few weeks—previously thought to be possibly diphtheria-related—has now been confirmed through testing.
“Overnight we’ve received the final test results from an international laboratory that confirmed that diphtheria was the probable cause,” he said.
“The final toxicology tests have come back demonstrating that that diphtheria bug is producing a toxin that can cause these health effects. We now say that is probable as the cause of death for that individual.”
However, Dr Burgess clarified that another man who reportedly died after contracting the disease had tested negative.
“I would like to be very clear that that sad death that happened in Alice Springs Hospital was not associated with diphtheria,” he said.
Government Response and Criticism
The health minister also defended the government’s response to the outbreak, following criticism that its messaging around the disease’s spread had been inadequate.
“The response has been swift, the response has been ongoing,” he said.
“Since the first report of diphtheria in Alice Springs, a pop-up clinic was stood up [there], as we have had teams, through Congress down in Alice Springs, working through the town camps of Alice Springs to ensure they’re getting on top of diphtheria.”
Dr Burgess said he would “absolutely” welcome an inquiry into the outbreak after federal Health Minister Mark Butler flagged establishing one on Monday.
“We’d like to get to a point of understanding, as well, how our Australian health protection systems have let us down and led us to this situation,” he said.
Outbreak Strain ‘Imported’ via Queensland
Dr Burgess explained that vaccination rates had been falling globally since the COVID-19 pandemic, and “historically high” immunisations in the NT’s remote Aboriginal communities had dropped below 90 per cent.
“What we’re seeing now, thankfully, is a really good community response, particularly around the diphtheria vaccine campaign, and people are coming forward requesting the vaccine,” he said.
He noted that diphtheria had been “largely eradicated” in Australia by a successful national immunisation campaign in the 1940s, with the current “unusual outbreak” being the worst since records began.
While “we don’t fully understand yet the characteristics of this bug,” it was most likely the bacterial strain had been “imported into northern Queensland in about 2022.”
“We did see an outbreak there between 2022 to 2024 and the genetic fingerprint from the outbreak has extended across to Western Australia and now into these cases into the NT,” he said.
“Bugs are evolving all the time, so while we had effectively eliminated diphtheria, we are in the situation now where we’re having a very strong public health response to eradicate this current incursion of diphtheria, and we’re seeing some really encouraging results.”
