Status: Active
Date issued: 24 October 2022
Issued by: Adjunct Clinical Professor Brett Sutton, Chief Health Officer
Issued to: Health professionals and the Victorian community
Key messages
- There is increasing antibiotic resistance being detected in infections of Shigella bacteria (shigellosis), especially among returned travellers and men who have had recent sexual contact with other men.
- Shigellosis is generally a self-limiting infection but is highly contagious and can be potentially serious.
- Clinicians should include stool culture and susceptibility tests when testing patients for shigellosis, and reserve antibiotic treatment for severe infection and priority cases.
- Clinicians and pathology services must notify the Department of Health of all shigellosis cases.
- Local Public Health Units are following up people diagnosed with resistant Shigella infections, and their contacts to provide advice about symptom monitoring, testing and exclusion requirements.
- People with shigellosis who work as food handlers, childcare workers, health care workers, or workers in a residential facility should be excluded from work until advised by the Local Public Health Unit.
- Children must be excluded from childcare and primary school until 24 hours after symptoms resolve.
- People with shigellosis should maintain good hygiene and safer sex practices, avoid preparing food for others, and avoid settings with an increased risk of onward spread to at-risk individuals.
- Read the full advisory: Health warning on antibiotic resistant Shigella
