In this issue we get a wrap up of notifiable enteric diseases and gastrointestinal outbreaks reported in the NT in 2024. Salmonellosis rates were higher than the prior 2 years and have been consistently higher than the rest of the nation. There were 2 Salmonella Muenchen outbreaks - one associated with wild-hunted kangaroo and the other at a remote aged care facility. While amoebiasis can be acquired in the north of Australia, the 5 cases reported in 2024 in the NT were all acquired overseas.
There were 2 NT Public Health Alerts issued in the first quarter of 2025. One focused on the ongoing syphilis outbreak and the other on an imported case of measles diagnosed in Darwin – the first case notified in the NT since 2019. Measles cases are currently reported in very large numbers in many neighbouring countries and already this year all Australian states and territories have notified cases. The message is to make sure you are measles immune. Measles vaccines in the NT are free for all those who are not immune.
In the abstracts generated from NT peer-reviewed published articles 4 feature melioidosis. From them we learn of details of new and old diagnostics for melioidosis, the fact that melioidosis ‘is on-the-move’ and that melioidosis, leptospirosis and rickettsiosis are 3 bacterial diseases considered to be in a cycle of neglect globally.