Abstract
Bug Breakfast is the name given to a monthly series of
hour-long breakfast seminars on communicable diseases
delivered by the Division of Population Health of the NSW
Department of Health. The Centre for Epidemiology and
Research and the Centre for Health Protection coordinate
the content and delivery of the sessions. First delivered in
1990, the purpose of Bug Breakfast is to keep participants
abreast of current issues relating to the management of
communicable diseases in NSW. It also forms part of the
training for public health officer trainees.
The audience for Bug Breakfast has grown considerably
over the past 15 years. Since 1999 the sessions have been
made available to rural public health sites across NSW
by videoconferencing through the resources of the NSW
Telehealth Initiative. Currently 11 sites (see Figure 1) are
routinely connected to Bug Breakfast, with the seminar
transmitted from the live site at the NSW Department of
Health, North Sydney. Over a hundred people regularly
participate in each session.
