Vaccination alone insufficient for WA diphtheria outbreak, state seeks federal aid

Vaccination alone will not be enough to stop the "rare outbreak" of diphtheria from spreading in Western Australia, with the state likely to seek federal support to ensure remote communities are fully covered, the state's director of communicable disease control says.

An outbreak of diphtheria across Australia this year has seen more than 220 cases reported with the disease primarily in the Northern Territory, WA and South Australia. The federal government has announced a multi-million-dollar funding boost to help tackle the disease.

Of the 85 cases recorded so far in WA, most are in the Kimberley region.

Paul Armstrong said the disease appeared to be caused by a strain that was first discovered in Northern Queensland in 2022.

Dr Armstrong said the current vaccination program underway was focused on preventing more serious symptoms rather than containing the spread of the disease.

"We do have very high vaccination rates in WA, and we have over 90 per cent vaccination rates in the Kimberley and other regions," he said.

"I don't think that's the reason we're having this outbreak at the moment."

He said the first phase of a two-part vaccination program was already underway in the three affected areas, with 2,000 people vaccinated since the start of May, but thousands more were at risk.

"There is still a long way to go," Dr Armstrong said.

"We've probably got around 18,000 people in those three regions, Aboriginal people who are the ones with the highest risk and there's a lot other non-Aboriginal people in those regions."

Two-phase vaccination rollout

Dr Armstrong said the first phase of the rollout was focused on targeting people who were not vaccinated and provided free vaccines from the state government.

"The effect of the vaccine is not so much about the transmission of the germ, but it's about if you get infected with the germ, then your likelihood of having severe disease is very low," he said.

He said the second phase would require "a lot more planning", with access to remote communities a priority.

"[It will involve] teams to go out to individual communities and vaccinate … we will be doing that in close cooperation with Aboriginal health groups in those regions and the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia as well," Dr Armstrong said.

"We are … also in discussions with the Commonwealth on how we might augment the resourcing of that vaccination program."

New challenge for clinical staff

The Aboriginal Medical Service's Lorraine Anderson said many health staff in the Kimberley had never seen the disease before, so knowing how to treat it was a challenge.

"Trying to introduce a disease that is so ancient that it's relatively new to our clinicians is really difficult," she said.

"And the other thing is it tends to present with a sore throat or skin infection, which we get constantly through our clinics, in particular in the Kimberley."

Caitlyn White from the Aboriginal Health Council of WA urged everyone who had not been vaccinated from diphtheria in the past five years, or at all, to go and get one.

Dr White said the lack of a workforce able to give people the vaccinations or boosters was a problem.

"People are coming and asking for the vaccination, but we have busy clinics with a lot of other things that we're dealing with," she said.

Not aware 'diphtheria existed' in Kimberley

A mother of two boys in Wyndham only heard about the diphtheria outbreak after she took her sons to hospital last week with sore throats.

Emma Venables said once she got there, the staff began asking about diphtheria.

"I didn't know anything about it, so I did a bit of a Google search and was surprised to find out what it was and that it's even existing in the Kimberley at the moment," she said.

"I was surprised that we hadn't had any notes come home about it, if it was a population health issue, that we weren't aware of it until we actually took the kids up [to hospital]."

State working to 'manage outbreak'

WA's Health Minister Meredith Hammat said the state government began its response to the outbreak when the first case was detected.

"WA Health has been working closely with Aboriginal Health Services and other clinical services to manage the outbreak and reduce spread through support for those who've been diagnosed, contact tracing and vaccination," Ms Hammat said.

"We've also increased access to vaccination with free vaccines available to Kimberley, Pilbara and Goldfields residents, and people who have regular face-to-face contact with Aboriginal communities in these regions."

Program and services manager at Nindilingarri Cultural Health Services, Clint Bussey, said more support was needed in the region to administer vaccinations, particularly in remote communities.

"We're about the size of Austria, and we have 40 communities. Our workforce isn't what it could be,"

"We don't all have access to a clinic or medical services every day, so that makes it really difficult for everyone in the community."

"It's more about the foot soldiers that are willing to help, getting out there and about spreading the message and getting those equipped to offer vaccines."