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NSW Public Health Bulletin archive

Lessons from a respiratory illness outbreak in an aged-care facility Volume 19 Issue 9-10

John Turahui, Cate Wallace, Paul Corben, Robin Osborne

New South Wales Public Health Bulletin 19(10) 153–156 https://dx.doi.org/10.1071/NB07083 Published online: 21 November 2008

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About the author/s

John Turahui

Cate Wallace

Paul Corben

Robin Osborne

Abstract

This report outlines practical lessons learnt from an influenza-like outbreak in an aged-care facility in NSW, which affected 26 residents, resulted in 14 hospital admissions and was associated with six deaths. No common causative agent was identified. Key recommendations include: encouraging aged-care facilities to establish mechanisms that improve the early identification of outbreaks and timely implementation of outbreak control strategies; identifying strategies to inform general practitioners of outbreaks if they have patients residing in aged-care facilities; and improving the vaccination coverage of the aged-care workforce.