Queensland Health investigating second locally acquired malaria case in the Torres Strait Islands

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Health officials in Queensland are responding to the state's first outbreak of malaria in two years. Two cases have been detected but they're confident the disease is under control.

Transcript

00:00Health officials have confirmed there have been two locally acquired cases of malaria on Saibai

00:08Island in the Torres Strait in the past month. Now it's the first time in about two years the

00:13mosquito-borne disease has been acquired locally in Queensland. There's been an immediate response

00:19to this with public health teams and the local Torres Strait Island Regional Council conducting

00:24mosquito spraying on the island. Now Saibai is one of Australia's northernmost communities. It's an

00:31island village just four kilometres from the Papua New Guinea mainland where malaria is endemic.

00:37Travel between coastal villages in PNG and Saibai is very common. There's cross-border trade and local

00:43markets that people access by boat. Officials say it's most likely a mosquito infected with malaria

00:49made its way onto Saibai by boat but they can't rule out that an infected person travelled across

00:55and that malaria got into the local mosquito population that way. They are confident though

01:01that with control efforts and cooler weather this outbreak is under control. The public health unit

01:07says both patients who contracted malaria have undergone treatment and are now completely well.

01:13They have urged though that anyone on the island who develops symptoms such as high fever, nausea and

01:18muscle pain, seek medical treatment urgently.

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