{"id":565139,"date":"2026-03-26T07:26:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565139\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T07:26:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:26:29","slug":"centre-for-disease-control-issues-health-warning-after-outbreak-of-respiratory-diphtheria-in-nt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565139\/","title":{"rendered":"Centre for Disease Control issues health warning after outbreak of respiratory diphtheria in NT"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Northern Territory Department of Health has declared an outbreak of diphtheria, with four cases of a deadly strain now confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, NT Health’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC) issued a public health alert for the disease after three cases in Darwin and one in Alice Springs were reported in the last week.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Several cases have been detected in Darwin. (Supplied: Jack Bullen)<\/p>\n

There have also been 33 cases of cutaneous diphtheria notified since 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This is unusual, we haven’t had an outbreak in my 26 years in the Northern Territory,” NT Health Chief Health Officer Paul Burgess said.<\/p>\n

“The control measures are well in hand, the risk to the general public is extremely low.”<\/p>\n

He said contact tracing is underway for people who may have come into contact with cases of diphtheria.<\/p>\n

What is diphtheria?<\/p>\n

Diphtheria has been a feared childhood disease throughout history because of devastating outbreaks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The infection was a common cause of death in children up until the 1940s, when a vaccine was widely rolled out.<\/p>\n

There are two strains of diphtheria identified in the NT; respiratory and cutaneous.<\/p>\n

They are both highly contagious, vaccine-preventable diseases caused by toxic strains of Corynebacterium diphtheriae.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Diphtheria is a vaccine-preventable illness. (ABC News: Michael Lloyd)<\/p>\n

Respiratory diphtheria can be life-threatening if untreated.<\/p>\n

The symptoms can include a sore throat, mild fever, loss of appetite and, in severe cases, trouble breathing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The symptoms of cutaneous diphtheria can include sores or ulcers (often on the legs) and slow-healing wounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Don’t listen to vaccine sceptics’<\/p>\n

Dr Burgess urged Territorians to check their vaccination status and to vaccinate themselves and their children.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Burgess encourages vaccinations for diphtheria. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“These diseases are still with us, even though we don’t get sick with them because most of us are vaccinated,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Don’t listen to the vaccine sceptics and the misinformation spread on social media.”<\/p>\n

According to the Australian Immunisation Handbook, the vaccine for diphtheria is only available in Australia as a combination vaccine which includes other antigens for pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus.<\/p>\n

Vaccines are free for children at six weeks, two months, four months, six months, 18 months, four years and 12 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adults are also urged to get vaccinated every 10 years and pregnant women between 20 and 32 weeks of pregnancy.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Northern Territory Department of Health has declared an outbreak of diphtheria, with four cases of a deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,2154,278271,87020,5249,137,1098,18481,1836,278270,37542,4886,4050,7277],"class_list":["post-565139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cdc","tag-centre-for-disease-control","tag-contagious","tag-darwin","tag-health","tag-nt","tag-nt-health","tag-public-health","tag-respiratory-diphtheria","tag-response","tag-vaccine","tag-viral","tag-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}