A teenage girl in Townsville has tested positive for respiratory diphtheria, which can be life-threatening

Townsville’s Public Health Unit is searching for cause of the first case of respiratory diphtheria discovered in the city in decades. DETAILS.

A teenage girl is the first confirmed case of respiratory diphtheria in Townsville in decades.

Respiratory diphtheria is a bacterial infection that can cause life-threatening illness when it attacks certain parts of the body, usually in the nose or throat.

Townsville University Hospital’s Director of Public Health Dr Steven Donohue announced the find on Wednesday, saying the young girl had been vaccinated against the illness.

“If it gets into your respiratory tract, it can cause the death of the tissues in your throat, it’s horrible, it’s a very severe throat infection,” Dr Donohue said.

“Sometimes people would choke to death in the past, before we had vaccines. Nowadays, this is a rare disease, because most of the Australian population is vaccinated.”

Young schoolboy being vaccinated for Diphtheria, Brisbane, 1940. (Description taken from: Courier Mail, 06 March 1940, p. 8).

Dr Donohue said teenager was not that sick, and they were looking for other cases in the community.

“That’s the unusual feature here. It just goes to show that this germ is around. She isn’t that sick, and is going to recover, but we implemented some contact tracing and swabbing those people to see if they’ve got the same germ and treating with antibiotics,” Dr Donohue said.

“Now, the general message about diphtheria is that it is absolutely critical for people to update their vaccination.

“Right now, we know that the toxo-genic strain of diphtheria is present in Townsville and we can’t guarantee someone else won’t get it. If you’re fully vaccinated, you’re highly unlikely to get the nasty, respiratory case of diphtheria.”

Dr Donohue said investigations were ongoing to determine if this current strain of diphtheria was related in anyway to an earlier outbreak in 2022 in Townsville, Palm Island and other northern communities.

“If you’re fully vaccinated, it means you have immunity against the toxin – that can attack your heart, throat or respiratory tract. You won’t get the full-blown disease. You might still get a throat infection and need treatment with antibiotics, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll get sick or die from the infection.”

Originally published as A teenage girl in Townsville has tested positive for respiratory diphtheria, which can be life-threatening