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In the last issue we reported on a case of infant botulism which was notified directly to CDI as a case report. The case was not reported in the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System as the case definition for that system is specifically for foodborne botulism.¹ CDI is aware of two other reported cases of infant botulism in the past 6 years. The first case, a 2 month old male infant from South Australia, occurred in October 1995, and was reported to the specialised surveillance system for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) managed by the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit.² The second case, reported in June 1997, was a 5 month old male infant from Western Australia (Adams C, Watson A, Health Department of Western Australia, personal communication).

References

1. National Health and Medical Research Council. Surveillance case definitions. NHMRC, March 1994

2. Herceg A, Kennett M, Antony J, Longbottom H. Acute flaccid paralysis surveillance in Australia: the first year. Commun Dis Intell 1996:20;403-40

This article was published in Communicable Diseases Intelligence Vol 22 No 7, 9 July 1998.