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

The health clinic in Yuendumu. Locals say they are frustrated by the lack of information around the diphtheria outbreak. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian View image in fullscreen The health clinic in Yuendumu. Locals say they are frustrated by the lack of information around the diphtheria outbreak. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian 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 Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast 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. Yuendumu has a health clinic and community health centre but several locals have told Guardian Australia that the health clinic is often in an “unsanitary” state, with no hand sanitiser available. Despite the Territory government providing resources in several Indigenous languages, including Warlpiri, the language spoken in Yuendumu, locals say there is limited understanding about the disease in the community and little visibility of public health information. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Warlpiri man Eugene Penhall told Guardian Australia that locals were frustrated with the lack of information, particularly information that was applicable to daily life in a community where housing is overcrowded and living standards are poor . “The thing about this outbreak is that we’ve never been told what it is,” Penhall said. “How we live as Aboriginal people, we have 10 people in one house. They could be carrying this thing that we don’t even know about and it’s really, really bad.” Diphtheria is a disease of poverty that has no place in modern Australia. When we talk about Closing the Gap, this is the gap | Donna Ah Chee Read more Penhall said he was only made aware of the outbreak when he went to the health clinic on another matter. “They ended up telling me about the vaccine, so I had to take it,” he said. “They just give me the vaccine and told me about this new thing [diphtheria] and I don’t even know what this thing does … I asked if this was like Covid but with this one, we’ve never been told to do anything. We’ve been living close to one another, walking around and doing normal stu