A dollar spent on prevention, saves at least four spent on a cure. The TB strain to our immediate north is a deadly killer strain that currently threatens Queensland; and through it, all of Australia!
Where, given our success eliminating this disease, there's little local immunity; and a catastrophe, just waiting to happen!
Along with currently unnecessary billions needing to be spent trying to remedy a disease, that is all but impossible to cure, largely thanks to people not completing their course of antibiotic medication!
Cerebral malaria is a virtual death sentence, that is coming southward with climate change, and a few millions spent now on R+D, could save billions later.
We conceivably can cure aids, with a combination of currently approved rheumatism and leukaemia medication?
People virtually condemned to die and sometimes through no fault of their own, [deceived wife, needle stick injury, infected blood products etc,] stand a far better chance, if the clinical trials are conducted now, while they are still comparatively healthy; and are clearly not served by being forced to wait, for medication, already approved for other applications; or indeed, the others they might still infect, while waiting for years for an already promising possible cure.
Which by the way, will deprive big Pharma many annual billions!
There are over a million known HIV carriers in just north America alone, with each one spending around an averaged $20,000.00+ annually, on antivirals.
I leave you to do the sums.
Rhrosty.

Australian government did their sums on TB from the north and recently closed the clinics where infected PNG people were coming for treatment.

JF, I think I read a while ago that the TB funding was being transferred to facilities in PNG itself, to try and combat the problem at source - but that might have just been Government spin and creative accounting.

Candide,
You may well be very correct there.
However how could government transfer the good medical people as well? I think those people would have been really sticking their own necks out running the already established clinic in north Queensland?
I think it better to have clinics in PNG and ALSO in far north Qld to prevent sick people coming further south for treatment. Some people have money to afford travelling by air and infecting other people, be it in PNG or on the way to Aus. It may only take one infected person to spread this disease to say Melbourne.
I feel very close to the issue because my father died due to TB when I was about 5 yrs old and I have had to grow up without a father.
My mother later told me my dad thought he caught the TB while travelling in a train.
There is no need to be a doctor to understand TB is best treated in open air conditions that exist travelling by canoe to any suitable clinic with open air, not closed up due to cold, in PNG or far northern Qld.

JF aus, it wasn't the Australian Govt that closed these clinics, but Queensland's. The PNG clinic is a joke, paying little more than lip service to the high sanitation isolation requirements of treating/managing this disease.
They are clearly aware that this is necessary medical treatment, given they were demonstrating it for the cameras, when our reporters were up there, covering the closure of our northernmost clinic.
Sadly, all the good medicine was literally abandoned once they believed the cameras were gone, with sick people wandering around the wards.
And Island hopping sick people remain free to come and go in their tinnies as they please, according to traditional movement, and official PNG/Australia agreement!
Movement, which threatens to move this deadly killer strain onto mainland Australia.
Which will likely cost the Queensland Govt many millions more, than the comparative pittance they were shelling out, for a small northern Island clinic!
Why did they close it?
I believe, to fulfil the myopically focused needs, or the ideological imperative, of conservative bean counters?
Rhrosty.

It may only take one infected person to spread this disease to say Melbourne.
JF Aus,
I'm surprised that hasn't already happened when you watch them come across from Busi or Sigabaduru or Mabadauan to the australian islands where they stay weeks on end enmasse.
People not infrequently jump on a plane to Cairns straight out of PNG. Most however go by dinghy on windy/rainy days when no other boats are out. What you see on Border Security is at airports not out at sea or along remote coastlines. I once talked with a West Papuan who told me he frequently takes people to mainland Australia.
We'd really need some kind of Coastwatch manned by personnel with an interest in protecting Australia not just their Superannuation or etc to stop that.

Individual,
I think that concern was an inspiration for those who set up and operated the TB clinic up there in far north Qld.
My understanding of TB is that bacteria can not stay alive in open air for more than say 25 seconds, maybe a minute in warm tropical atmosphere.
However when people are contained, say in an aircraft cabin prior to engine start, that bacteria can spread into other people in that cabin, confined reception area, train or such.
There is a lot we are not being informed about.
Resources for health should be unlimited. Could be if political leaders has productive nouse to encourage new industry and revenue.

bacteria can not stay alive in open air for more than say 25 seconds, maybe a minute in warm tropical atmosphere.
JF Aus,
That may be so but it still leaves an infected person infected. Once they get into an aircraft or a car etc. they can take TB anywhere in the world if the wish to do so.
I'm with you on health resources should be generous. The problem with health is that much of it prevention rather than cure. As long as people are aware of the possibility of a cure they'll not bother too much with prevention. We need education on that. Not tertiary education, real experience kind of education, let those promiscuous & drug addicts cop the consequences instead of wasting valuable resources on them. Give medical aid to the innocent & unfortunate. I find it absurd that those celebrities with AIDS aren't charged with infecting so many others.

A sneeze leaves the nostrils at 104 miles PH, or around a 170 klms PH!
The tiny droplets can then travel up to thirty metres, where they can deposit on any surface or be ingested as we breathe.
Droplets collected as we touch infected surfaces, transfer some pretty potent pathogens, which then survive a lot longer, thanks to our body heat/moisture, etc.
We can become an infected host, just by rubbing tired eyes, licking a page turning finger, or kissing someone who has some of the live pathogen on lips or face etc.
This is the very reason why TB patients need to be managed with high sanitation, [masks, gloves, head and footwear covers, and disposable full cover garments,] and in isolation!
Rhrosty.

I grew up in PNG. One of my vivid memories is the panic of my parents every time I had a remotely intractable cough. Sputum tests for TB were a normal part of my childhood, although fortunately I never actually contracted it.

We are in a hugely fortunate position in Australia with respect to our biological security capacity, but we will not be immune. The whole globe needs to get used to the idea that resistance is going to make the past century a lamented golden age and that "consumption", diptheria, typhus, plague, leprosy, influenza - all of the great historical killer diseases except smallpox - are once again going to be familiar companions. Vaccination can only reduce their prevalence unless forced vaccination becomes a norm across the world and a similarly aggressive campaign to the one that eliminated smallpox is conducted for each of the epidemic diseases. It's a much bigger threat than climate change. The first really large global pandemic of resistant disease can only be a decade or two away at best.

Well if lucky and connected at least talking face to face with a doctor on the NBN might solve everything!

It might keep the doctor safe, but it won't do much for the patient...

i just read that the GF has provided US$13 million to PNG for the NTP. The total funding for TB in PNG is $15 million 7 consideration is being given for more funding for 2014-16.

How much funding for treatment and control of TB in far north Queensland?
I am not aware TB stops at the PNG border!
Torres Strait islanders come to mind, plus all the northern cattlemen and come and go workers as well as tourist to the region. Then all of us.

How much funding for treatment and control of TB in far north Queensland?

JF Aus,
I am not privy to that information but I'm convinced that QLD Health is a major contributor to keep QANTASLINK flying with handsome profits.
Australian Helicopters too are doing extremely well out of providing an aerial ambulance service. I have heard pilots call it something else tough.

Individual,
Do the crews and any passengers on those aircraft have good face masks and hospital-standard hand washing facilities for when TB cases are being knowingly or unknowingly transported in the region?

JF Aus,
Well, they're fairly professional & I suppose anyone getting onto that career bandwagon will doubly ensure not to contract anything.
They do a great job in return for a great career.