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News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Queensland Health confirms Clade 1 strain of monkeypox detected, second time ever for Australia
An urgent health alert has been issued after a strain of monkeypox - confirmed to be a strain known to cause a widespread 'pox-like' rash - was detected in a returned Australian travelled. Queensland Health confirmed the case of monkeypox (Mpox) was detected in the state's Metro South region. Testing revealed it to be the Clade 1 strain of the virus - marking the second time in history the more serious strain has ever been detected in Australia. The case was acquired overseas but authorities say the risk to the wider community is very low. Queensland Health confirmed exposure to the public had been limited and contact tracing was underway after the detection. According to the Australian Immunisation Handbook, the symptoms of Mpox can include fever, swollen lymph nodes, fatigue, headache and muscle aches, followed by a rash within 2-4 days of infection. It spreads primarily through close or intimate contact. Complications of the virus can range from bacterial infections to enciphalitus and pneumonia. The Clade 1 strain of the virus is known cause higher numbers of severe illnesses. Free Mpox vaccines are available to high-risk groups through sexual health clinics and GPs. 'Vaccination is available for post-exposure prophylaxis as well as primary preventive vaccination. High risk groups, including all sexually active gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men and their partners, are eligible for free vaccines through sexual health clinics and general practitioners,' Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Tim Nicholls said. Two doses are recommended for optimal protection. Those travelling to areas with Clade 1 transmission are encouraged to get vaccinated before departure. Queensland Health is monitoring the situation.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
WA's flu season tipped to be second-worst in past decade as cases surge
It feels like every year we're told this is one of the worst flu seasons on record. But this time around, doctors really mean it. We're only part-way through July and the rate of infections is already nearing full-year figures for previous years. It's worrying experts, including the Australian Medical Association, whose president said West Australians should buckle up for a "difficult couple of weeks ahead". Professor Yuben Moodley is a professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Western Australia, and said he expected this year to be the second-worst flu season in the last decade. "The virus evolves and mutates every flu season and the aim of the virus is to avoid our immune response and to then infect cells more efficiently," he said. "There's certain times and certain flu strains which are more effective in doing that than others. That does not necessarily mean the flu is getting more severe, however. "What happens though is that we have an increasing ageing population who are becoming more susceptible to the flu," Professor Moodley said. "The flu in a young, healthy person is not going to have major consequences, but if you have much more aged people, it certainly will result in more hospitalisations than previously. "So an increase in the ageing population will result in increased presentations to the doctor or to hospital." It comes as national data showed a 50 per cent increase in hospital admissions over a fortnightly period due to the winter surge. Those increased presentations have been blamed for increased pressure on hospitals, as shown by ambulance ramping figures. Ambulances are considered "ramped" when they spend more than half-an-hour waiting outside a hospital to hand over a patient. The average hours paramedics have spent ramped each day has been increasing significantly in WA since May, and is currently sitting just shy of records set at the peak of the pandemic. Premier Roger Cook said it was not surprising the system would be under pressure at this time of year. He also denied St John Ambulance struggling to meet its response time targets showed there needed to be extra capacity in the health system. "We need to make sure that we deploy taxpayers' funds in an efficient manner, so you don't want to have too much extra capacity, you don't want to have too little extra capacity," he said. "It's a matter of balance. "But [the system's] performing well … and we'll continue to look at how we can improve hospital services." Cook's view is in stark contrast to medical groups, including the Australian Medical Association, who suggest the state is at least 1,000 hospital beds short of being able to meet demand. "While demand on our hospitals is high, it is being managed and pausing elective surgeries is not something that is being considered," Health Minister Meredith Hammat said during the week. Compounding issues is that WA's flu season started earlier than usual. "This year in particularly, possibly because of increased travel over the last six months, we have seen a worse flu season earlier than we expected," WA Health Director General Shirley Bowen told budget estimates earlier in July. "Normally in Western Australia we might see a flu peak in July, August or September, often more in the August period. "This year we saw new cases in January. That is sort of an overflow from the situation in the UK and Europe." The solutions, of course, seem simple: vaccination and staying home when sick. Actually getting people to do either of those things is much more difficult. Western Australia's flu vaccine coverage was 25.4 per cent at the end of June — one per cent behind the national average and tied for second-last with Queensland. Asked on Friday if she was happy with the uptake of the vaccine, Seniors Minister Simone McGurk would only the say the government was "sending a very, very strong message that we want people to be vaccinated" by making it free. Professor Moodley thinks more needs to be done. "I think it is important to address vaccine scepticism a little more strongly,"he said. "Perhaps we can actually improve our outreach to people and to educate people better. Preventative Health Minister Sabine Winton said earlier this month apathy was an issue. "I am told the rate is about two per cent better than the case last year," she said. "I do not want anyone to be complacent. We need to be doing much better than that to really have an even better impact on keeping people healthy and out of hospitals." Like anything in health, that's likely to be expensive and take a long time. It means at this stage, as cases continue to grow, there's little to do but stick to the basics and manage the pressures that result.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Indigenous rangers join WA's Burrup Peninsula underwater heritage survey
Caleb Pitt-Cook is drifting just above the ocean floor, running his fingers through the soft sand. The 24-year-old Ngarluma man is searching for the stone tools his ancestors used thousands of years ago. "If you told me I'd be doing this work two years ago, I would have laughed in your face," he says. "It's one of the coolest parts of our job. I'd say it's my favourite part right now." Mr Pitt-Cook is contributing to research that has already made history. "There's only ever been two submerged Aboriginal archaeological sites mapped in Australia," Flinders University maritime archaeologist John McCarthy says. "Those were found by our team here." When humans first populated the Australian continent about 65,000 years ago, the sea level was much lower. "There's a huge area of archaeological landscape that's been lost to sea level change," Dr McCarthy says. Since 2019, Dr McCarthy's team has been trying to find artefacts from that time, submerged off the coast of the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia. The region's traditional custodians call the peninsula Murujuga. "The initial discoveries made in Murujuga were stone tools. They're very common — the sort of knives and forks of their day," Dr McCarthy says. "They survive very well through sea-level change because they're made of igneous rock, which is very hard and durable." Maritime archaeology of this kind is still in its infancy in Australia. Dr McCarthy says it is almost certain there are significant sites all across the continent's perimeter, and mapping where they are is the first step to protecting them. This year's round of underwater surveys is the first time in Australia that Indigenous rangers have accompanied maritime archaeologists. It is the culmination of more than a year of training for a handful of Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation rangers. "First, you start off with pool dives and it's a big jump up to actually get out on the water," Ngarluma ranger Malik Churnside says. "Once you're out there in the water and there's actually animals … sharks swimming around, [it] can be quite a scary sight, at first." One of the submerged sites Mr Churnside surveyed was an area that thousands of years ago would have been a freshwater spring. The spring is referenced in a Ngarluma cultural song his elders still sing today. "It's just like evidence and a connection to something they've talked about and sung about for such a long time," he said. Back at camp, Yindjibarndi man and Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation director Vincent Adams pulls on a virtual reality headset. It transports him from the hot Pilbara afternoon to the silty depths of Murujuga, where he can look out at the seabed alongside the divers. The goggles connect to a live feed from a remote operated vehicle (ROV), allowing elders and knowledge holders to identify artefacts in real time. Mr Adams says the technology is a big hit among the community elders. "It's like 20 years ago when the mobile phone came out and they were all frightened of it," he laughs. Mr Adams says several of the artefacts he has helped classify trace back to ancient hunting, crafts, and ceremonies; practices that still exist in some form today. "When they bring this up from under water, we can see that this is history from here, culture from here," he said. It is also an opportunity to inform researchers of the local lore and rules behind the tools. "If it's men's stuff [that] comes up, women can't see this, kids can't see it. Only men that have been through law," Mr Adams says. "We've been practising for years on land. This culture now is under water." The ROV will allow the team to rapidly survey larger and harder-to-reach areas. Mapping these sites is a new frontier for cultural heritage protections and could prove pertinent for waters crisscrossed by bulk carriers and offshore pipelines. Murujuga intersects with the Carnarvon basin, which is home to Australia's largest gas reserves. Geoff Bailey, a world authority on submerged landscapes, says robust information is essential to ensure industry can navigate the uncharted history off the Burrup Peninsula. "If somebody puts a hole in the seabed … they're quite likely to expose something that is of relevance and interest to the environmental history of the landscape and the cultural history of that landscape," Professor Bailey says. "The key to this is good communication and understanding." Earlier this month, the Murujuga Cultural Landscape was granted World Heritage status by the United Nations in recognition of its outstanding universal value. In UNESCO's unanimous ruling, member countries lauded the underwater archaeological work as a critical part of the nomination and called for further study. Mr Vincent Adams says the research is laying important groundwork as more gas projects look to come online. "This has popped up a lot of times in conversations with elders, saying what about the pipeline?" he says. "There's no law, there's no rule for any of this. Beyond the enormity of the task at hand, Mr Pitt-Cook's time below the waves is one of reflection. "Our culture is an oral-based tradition so it's all passed down through generations of speaking, songs and teaching," he says. "A lot of people are really sceptical because we don't have anything written down on paper. "But to actually go out and explore these places where the stories originate from is really special. "It's a whole different world under the water." Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or stream anytime on ABC iview.
