Volume 177 - Issue 11
Australia antigen
Authors: Robert Baird and Bronwyn Munro
Med J Aust 2002; 177 (11): 680. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2002.tb05016.x
Published online: 9 December 2002
Published online: 9 December 2002
Fairfield Hospital, now sadly closed, once described as "an infectious disease training nirvana, where physicians danced naked along the banks of the Yarra", used to attract many returned overseas travellers with fever. Among the tens of thousands of blood smears screened by its excellent malarial scientists, occasionally a gem such as this "Australia antigen" was found. Note that Tasmania is represented by a platelet, rather than as part of the monocyte, surely reflecting the ambivalent status of our island State.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Mr J A Manitta, Senior Haematologist, Malaria Reference Laboratory, Clinical Pathology Department, Fairfield Hospital (now the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory).