Australia's notifiable disease status, 2008: annual report of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System

In 2008, 65 communicable diseases and conditions were nationally notifiable in Australia. States and territories reported a total of 160,508 notifications of communicable diseases to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, an increase of 9% on the number of notifications in 2007. In 2008, the most frequently notified diseases were sexually transmissible infections (69,459 notifications, 43% of total notifications), vaccine preventable diseases (34,225 notifications, 21% of total notifications) and gastrointestinal diseases (27,308 notifications, 17% of total notifications). There were 18,207 notifications of bloodborne diseases; 8,876 notifications of vectorborne diseases; 1,796 notifications of other bacterial infections; 633 notifications of zoonoses and 4 notifications of quarantinable diseases.     

【In Press】 The prevalence of uncorrected refractive error in urban, suburban, exurban and rural primary school children in Indonesia

AIM: To determine the frequency and patterns of uncorrected refractive error (URE) across 4 gradients of residential densities (urban, exurban, suburban and rural) in Indonesia. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of school children from 3 districts in Yogyakarta and 1 district near Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The information regarding age, sex, school and school grader were recorded. The Snellen’s chart was used to measure the visual acuity and to perform the subjective refraction. The district was then divided into urban, suburban, exurban and rural area based on their location and population. RESULTS: In total, 410 school children were included in the analyses (urban=79, exurban=73, suburban=160 and rural=98 school children). Urban school children revealed the worst visual acuity (P<0.001) and it was significant when compared with exurban and rural. The proportion of URE among urban, suburban, exurban and rural area were 10.1%, 12.3%, 3.8%, and 1%, respectively, and it was significant when compared to the proportion of emetropia and corrected refractive error across residential densities (P=0.003). The risk of URE development in urban, suburban, exurban, and rural were 2.218 (CI: 0.914-5.385), 3.019 (CI: 1.266-7.197), 0.502(CI: 0.195-1.293), and 0.130 (CI: 0.017-0.972), respectively. CONCLUSION: URE is a major health problem among school children. Urban school children showed the worst VA. The school children in urban and suburban residential area had 2 and 3 times higher risk of developing the URE.     

Natural Human Infections with Plasmodium cynomolgi,P. inui,and 4 other Simian Malaria Parasites,Malaysia

We detected the simian malaria parasites Plasmodium knowlesi, P. cynomolgi, P. inui, P. coatneyi, P. inui–like, and P. simiovale among forest fringe–living indigenous communities from various locations in Malaysia. Our findings underscore the importance of using molecular tools to identify newly emergent malaria parasites in humans.