Archived at the Flinders Academic Commons:
http://hdl.handle.net/2328/27231
This is a scan of a document number DUN/Speeches/2476
in the Dunstan Collection, Special Collections, Flinders University Library.
http://www.flinders.edu.au/library/info/collections/special/dunstan/
Title:
Press statement by the Minister for Health: Increase in tuberculosis cases
Please acknowledge the source as:
Dunstan Collection, Flinders University Library.
Identifier: DUN/Speeches/2476
© Copyright Estate Donald Allan Dunstan
PRESS STATEMENT B Y N S ^ ^ ^ I S T E R FOR HEALTH, DR DTfJ.' 'EVERINGHAM INCREASE IN TUBERCULOSIS CASES
Australia has recorded its first increase in tuberculosis cases for ten years.
The Minister for Health, Dr D.N. Everingham, said today that a total of 1,561 new, active, infectious cases of tuberculosis had been notified during 1973.
This was a rise of 86 on the 1972 figure and represen- ted a rate of 11.'9 cases per 100,000 of mean population.
A comparison with figures for the previous three years - 13.7 per 100,000 in 1970, 11V6 in 1971 and 11.4 in 1972 - indicated that the steady decline in notifications over
recent years had slowed considerably and had possibly halted,, Dr Everingham said the 1973 increase in notifications which occurred mostly in New South Wales, had resulted despite a national slowing down in compulsory mass X-ray surveys which have been a major source of notification in Australia's
case-finding activities.
He said that reactivated cases (patients requiring treatment after having been conventionally considered cured) had also increased in New South Vales, and in South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.
Dr Everingham said Australians should be aware that tuberculosis was still a national problem and could not be regarded as a disease of the past, especially Vhen there
remained large areas of the world where the disease was virtually uncontrolled.
CANBERRA. A.CiT.
16 September 1974 Dunstan Collection, Special Collections, Flinders University Library.
