Community leaders say that swine flu is sweeping through Australia'slargest aboriginal communities on Palm Island off the Queensland coast.Elders say the government's approach to tackling the disease inindigenous communities is not working.
The latest victim on Palm Island of the H1N1 virus is a pregnant woman, who lost her unborn child after contracting the disease.
Officialsestimate that more than 10 percent of the island's population of 3,000people has been infected, although authorities do not yet have an exactfigure.
Like indigenous groups and poor communities aroundthe world, Australia's Aborigines are considered to be more vulnerableto the H1N1 flu than other groups because they suffer higher rates ofchronic disease. They also often have limited access to health care andlive in overcrowded homes, which make it easier for the virus to spread.
Medicalworkers have set up a special clinic on the island to treat flupatients, and the government has flown in supplies of antiviral drugs.Tribal elders, however, call on state and federal governments toimprove their swine flu strategies for Aborigines.
ProfessorMichael Gracey represents Unity of First People of Australia, acommunity organization, and says Aborigines need to be better informedabout the flu.
"It is very important also for mainstream healthprofessionals, in other words Western doctors and nurses and publichealth officials, to communicate better [and] that perhaps the best wayto get messages across to these high risk people, like indigenouscommunities, are one on one," he said.
More than 13,000 casesof the H1N1 virus have been confirmed in Australia. Although mostpatients suffer only a mild illness, scores of people are being treatedin hospitals and more than 45 people have died because of complicationsrelated to the flu.
Government-sponsored vaccine trials havestarted in the southern city of Adelaide. An effective vaccine islikely to be available in October. However, Australian healthauthorities expect a sharp rise in the number of swine flu infectionsin August, toward the end of winter in the southern hemisphere.