Australia is in the grips of a gastro outbreak with four times more cases of cryptosporidiosis, a parasitical gastrointestinal disease, so far this year than in all of 2023.
There have been 11,747 cryptosporidiosis cases in 2024 compared with 3716 in 2023. A quarter of all cases are in children under four.
Jessica Tily’s sons Ted, 3, and Vince, 1, recently recovered from a gastro illness as similar cases soar across the country.Credit: Wolter Peeters
It is the highest number of cases recorded since the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System began collecting data in 2001.
Cryptosporidiosis is caused by microscopic parasites in the faeces of infected domestic animals, farm animals and humans. It’s spread by swimming in contaminated water, through contact with an infected person, or by drinking unpasteurised milk or dairy products. The parasite eggs are not killed by chlorine.
The bowel infection can cause diarrhoea, fever, nausea and vomiting and recovery can take weeks.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Queensland Deputy Chair Dr Aileen Traves said GPs saw the spike in infection, particularly among daycare- and school-aged kids.
“It’s difficult because there’s no treatment aside from resting and staying hydrated. The main thing we need people to do is to prevent spreading it,” she said.
Queensland is suffering from the worst of the outbreak with almost half of the country’s cryptosporidiosis cases recorded there, likely to be due to people swimming in the warmer climate.
Traves said holidaymakers were also likely to keep swimming once symptoms passed, instead of waiting 14 days as necessary to stop spreading infections.
“It’s not isolated and as people travel, an outbreak somewhere can be spread really effectively,” she said.
Western Sydney University clinical academic gastroenterologist Vincent Ho said outbreaks like the current one happened occasionally, but would likely decrease across winter.
“We’d anticipate numbers to go down assuming there’s no vector for spread,” he said.
Ho warned extreme weather events, such as heavy storms and floods, spread the parasite, while droughts can also increase the concentration of the pathogen in rivers and dams.
Gastro cases as a disease group have also surged, with nearly 41,500 recorded infections in the first six months of the year compared to 61,320 last year, driven by gastro cases caused by bacteria such as salmonella, shigella and campylobacter.
Jess Tiley, a mother of two who lives on NSW’s Central Coast, said an outbreak at her children’s daycare had scores sick with gastro, although it’s unclear which bug caused the illness.
Her one-year-old Vince, three-year-old Ted, and her husband came down with the bug. Tiley, who is pregnant with twins, luckily avoided infection.
“It lasted around 48 hours and it was awful. The kids were back in nappies vomiting throughout the night. I had to put towels everywhere – it was a lot of washing,” she said.
“It’s all part of having children.”
Her tip to other parents is not to be tricked into thinking the bug has passed prematurely.
Gastro diseases can be avoided by using the proper handwashing technique, especially after contact with animals, avoiding drinking unfiltered water, and not swimming after heavy rain.
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