Toxigenic cutaneous diphtheria in a returned traveller.

Diphtheria is rarely reported in Australia. A case of cutaneous diphtheria was reported to the South Australian Department for Health and Ageing in April 2013 in an Australian-born 18-year-old female following travel in India. The case presented with a skin ulcer on her toe. Toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae was isolated from a swab of the lesion. The case was treated with antibiotics. The public health response included infection control advice, assessing the case and household contacts for organism carriage and providing antimicrobial chemoprophylaxis to contacts. Although cutaneous diphtheria is not included as part of the Australian communicable disease surveillance case definition, this may be an oversight as international evidence demonstrates that it is a source of organism transmission and can potentially result in outbreaks among susceptible populations. This formed the rationale for the public health response to this particular case. The protocol for the public health management of diphtheria in South Australia has since been revised to include cutaneous lesions caused by the toxigenic strain of the organism as part of the surveillance case definition. This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce the whole or part of this work in unaltered form for your own personal use or, if you are part of an organisation, for internal use within your organisation, but only if you or your organisation do not use the reproduction for any commercial purpose and retain this copyright notice and all disclaimer notices as part of that reproduction. Apart from rights to use as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968 or allowed by this copyright notice, all other rights are reserved and you are not allowed to reproduce the whole or any part of this work in any way (electronic or otherwise) without first being given the specific written permission from the Commonwealth to do so. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights are to be sent to the Online, Services and External Relations Branch, Department of Health, GPO Box 9848, Canberra ACT 2601, or by email to copyright@health.gov.au.