About this course
Diphtheria is a vaccine preventable disease caused by toxin-producing strains of the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae (and occasionally C. ulcerans). Infection can be serious as the bacteria produces a toxin that can damage airways, the heart, nerves and skin.
The course will assist ACCHO staff, and Aboriginal and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners more broadly, in undertaking contact tracing for diphtheria. It provides general clinical and public health information about the disease.
This is not an accredited diphtheria contact tracing course and does not replace any jurisdictional requirements.
CPD accreditation
Endorsed by NAATSIHWP for 1.5 CPD hours.
Contact tracing is a tool for stopping the spread of infectious diseases. It helps protect families and communities and should be carried out in ways that respect cultural connections and community ways of living.
This course will assist ACCHO staff, and Aboriginal and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners more broadly, in gaining skills and confidence in doing contact tracing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. It outlines the full contact tracing process, including interviewing cases and contacts, assessing and managing risk, and creating line lists.
You may not be involved in every part of this process during an outbreak (for example, you may only be interviewing people with the disease to identify their contacts) but understanding the entire workflow remains valuable. Decisions about who should undertake contact tracing should be agreed upon between the ACCHO and the local Public Health Unit.
This is not an accredited contact tracing course and does not replace any jurisdictional requirements.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this course you should be able to :
Outline the principles of defining confirmed, probable and suspected cases using standard CDNA case definitions.
Describe key case management actions that help stop infectious disease transmission.
Define a contact and identify common factors used to assess their risk (setting, duration and relationship to the case).
Outline general contact management actions, including symptom monitoring, testing advice and preventive measures (e.g. vaccination or post-exposure prophylaxis) based on PHU or state/territory Health Department guidance.
Explain what contact tracing is and state its key objectives during an outbreak.
Describe roles and responsibilities for contact tracing across ACCHOs and Public Health Units, including safe work practices.
Identify the key data items collected during case and contact interviews and explain why accurate record-keeping matters.
Apply cultural safety principles in contact tracing (kinship networks, multiple households, privacy/shame, and local adaptation of scripts).
CPD accreditation
Endorsed by NAATSIHWP for 3 CPD hours.
