Epidemics and pandemics of infectious disease have always played an important part in Australia’s history. Even so, until the advent of Coronavirus many people believed that the threat of death and disease from infectious disease was largely a thing of the past despite the continuing appearance of diseases like Dengue, Ross River Virus, Influenza, a variety of childhood infections and more recently, HIV/AIDS, SARS and Bird Flu. 

Berfore the mid- 1950s outbreaks of infectious disease occupied a more central place on Australia’s public health stage.