On 5 December 1995 the Medical Entomology Branch of Territory Health Services was notified by the Disease Control Centre of the sudden and unexplained death of a pilot who had been working in the Wollogorang area. The clinical symptoms of the deceased were considered to be consistent with a viral illness. The pilot was one of a 6 member geological survey team that had been stationed at Wollogorang homestead between 15-30 November 1995. MEB was informed that the survey team had been withdrawn from the field on the possibility that the cause of death was Australian encephalitis. The deceased had previously been ill on several occasions after swimming in Africa.
Wollogorang is a remote homestead situated approximately 225 km south east of Borroloola on an unsealed road that connects Borroloola to Hells Gate roadhouse and Burketown across the Queensland border. It is situated approximately 75 km from the coast and on the southern bank of Settlement Creek. The survey team had been operating in Georgetown and near Normanton, Queensland prior to operating in the Wollogorang area.
On 7 December 1995 two officers of the MEB conducted an investigation of the Wollogorang area in response to the possibility that the cause of death was a mosquito borne virus. Efforts to involve the regional Environmental Health Officers were unsuccessful.