STEFAN ARMBRUSTER | SBS
TUBERCULOSIS infections in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea have doubled in the past 12 months but the death toll has fallen from a peak three years ago, figures from Queensland Health show.
A Torres Strait woman died in Cairns last week from suspected multi-drug resistant TB and authorities are trying to trace people who had contact with her.
The latest death comes as the Papua New Guinea government announced an emergency task force to tackle its TB crisis, including on the international border with Australia.
PNG health authorities says they expect 29,000 people will be infected with the disease this year, up by 26% from 23,000 in 2013.
Australian authorities have long feared cross-border transmission of the multi-drug resistant strain of TB. The federal government has spent millions of dollars in recent years supporting TB treatment clinics on the PNG side of the border.
The 32-year-old Torres Strait islander woman died in Cairns Hospital on 29 September. A Queensland Health statement says she had close contacts in the Torres Strait and was a frequent traveller there and to Papua New Guinea.
Twelve people have been identified who had contact with her but it is believed there could be more but Queensland Health did not say if they any were infected.
It is the first reported TB-related death in Queensland this year. Three people died from TB last year, four in 2012 and nine in 2011.
Eight cases of TB have been notified to authorities in the Torres Strait region up to September this year, up from four in 2013.
Six non-Australian residents of the PNG-Torres Strait international border have been also been treated for TB in Queensland, up from one last year according to Queensland Health figures.
Queensland Health says the risk to the general public of developing TB is very low and 119 cases have been notified across the state up to September 30.