A woman in far north Queensland has become the second person in the state to die from a multi-drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis.
Queensland Health said the woman, 32, died at Cairns Hospital on September 29 due to complications secondary to tuberculosis.
She had been closely connected to a Torres Strait Island female who died from the disease in April 2013 at Cairns Hospital.
The woman lived in Cairns but frequently visited Papua New Guinea and Torres Strait, where she was originally from.
Doctors had raised concerns with her in the month before her death, but she skipped two further consultations, Queensland Health said in a statement.
The Cairns Hospital said it was still tracing the woman’s movements and her close contacts in Cairns and the Torres Strait.
Woman had contact with 50 more people
It was believed the woman came into contact with about 50 people, with 30 tested so far.
Five had returned a positive Mantoux tests but authorities said that indicated they had been previously infected and there was no immediate concern.
The director of Tropical Public Health Services in Cairns, Dr Richard Gair, said the risk of contracting the disease was low.
The disease was only passed on through close and sustained contact, and short-term exposure was not generally a risk, he said.
“Tuberculosis is a disease that doesn’t spread that easily; it doesn’t spread for example like the common cold,” he said.
“In order to catch tuberculosis from somebody who has infectious tuberculosis then you have to have close prolonged contact with somebody who usually means living with them in the same house for a period of time.”
In Queensland, the risk to the general public of developing TB is very low, with fewer than four cases of TB being diagnosed per 100,000 people each year.
More than 80 per cent of TB notifications in Queensland involve those born overseas in countries where TB is prevalent or people who have resided for a significant time in such countries.