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.
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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.