Tularaemia

Statutory notification

• Tularaemia is a notifiable infectious disease in Western Australia.
• Alert: cases must be reported urgently by telephone to the Public Health Unit within a few hours of first suspicion of diagnosis.
• See notifiable communicable disease case definitions (Word 1.29MB).
• Notifications should be made using the communicable disease notification form for metropolitan residents (PDF 209KB) or regional residents (PDF 209KB).
• For notification of regional residents see contact details of public health units.
• See also description of Statutory medical notifications in Western Australia.

Public health management

• Infectious agent: Francisella tularensis.
• Transmission: Usually arthropod bites including ticks in North America and Eurasia and some mosquito species in Russia and Sweden.  Other sources of infection include, handling infectious animal tissues or fluids, direct contact or ingestion of contaminated water, food or soil and inhalation of infective aerosols e.g. handling damp hay. Francisella tularensis is not endemic in Australia.
• Incubation period: From 1 to 14 days.
• Infectious period: No direct person to person transmission.
• Case exclusion: Isolate as a precaution while patient is undergoing antibiotic therapy.
• Contact exclusion: Do not exclude.
• Treatment: Antibiotic treatment as recommended by the doctor.
• Immunisation: Vaccine is used in some occupational high risk groups in endemic countries.
• Case and contact follow up: Is conducted by Public Health Units and the Communicable Disease Control Directorate.

Notifiable disease data and reports

• Notifiable infectious disease dashboard
• Infectious disease data reports