<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/04/diphtheria-outbreak-nt-aboriginal-community-health-clinic-ntwnfb>
"A remote Aboriginal community at the centre of the Northern Territory’s
diphtheria outbreak is struggling to cope with rising case numbers, with locals
saying there is no hand sanitiser at the health clinic and limited information
about how to avoid the disease or what to do if you test positive.
There have been more than 240 cases of the once-eradicated disease reported in
Australia since October, primarily in remote Indigenous communities in the NT,
South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia, according to data released
by the Australian Centre for Disease Control. One of the largest clusters in
the NT is in Yuendumu, a community of about 700 people 300km from Alice
Springs.
Yuendumu has a health clinic and community health centre but several locals
have told Guardian Australia that the health clinic is often in an “unsanitary”
state, with no hand sanitiser available. Despite the Territory government
providing resources in several Indigenous languages, including Warlpiri, the
language spoken in Yuendumu, locals say there is limited understanding about
the disease in the community and little visibility of public health
information.
Warlpiri man Eugene Penhall told
Guardian Australia that locals were
frustrated with the lack of information, particularly information that was
applicable to daily life in a community where housing is overcrowded and living
standards are poor.
“The thing about this outbreak is that we’ve never been told what it is,”
Penhall said. “How we live as Aboriginal people, we have 10 people in one
house. They could be carrying this thing that we don’t even know about and it’s
really, really bad.”
Penhall said he was only made aware of the outbreak when he went to the health
clinic on another matter. “They ended up telling me about the vaccine, so I had
to take it,” he said.
“They just give me the vaccine and told me about this new thing [diphtheria]
and I don’t even know what this thing does … I asked if this was like Covid but
with this one we’ve never been told to do anything. We’ve been living close to
one another, walking around and doing normal stuff.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
