Diphtheria outbreak: residents of remote NT community say health clinic has no hand sanitiser

There’s a three-week wait on test results in Yuendumu, near Alice Springs, and locals say NT Health has dropped the ball on telling locals what to do if they test positive

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A remote Aboriginal community at the centre of the Northern Territory’s diphtheria outbreak is struggling to cope with rising case numbers, with locals saying there is no hand sanitiser at the health clinic and limited information about how to avoid the disease or what to do if you test positive.

There have been more than 240 cases of the once-eradicated disease reported in Australia since October, primarily in remote Indigenous communities in the NT, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia, according to data released by the Australian Centre for Disease Control. One of the largest clusters in the NT is in Yuendumu, a community of about 700 people 300km from Alice Springs.