The AMA Guides

Infectious Diseases and WorkCover

Many infectious diseases are related to work. These include conditions such as Q fever and Leptospirosis which have a clear link to specific employments such as meat workers. Other diseases may also be related to work for example a nurse may contract tuberculosis from being in contact with carriers of the disease. If this contact occurs in the course of work the nurse will be entitled to WorkCover benefits. Other diseases such as malaria, Ross River fever etc may be related to work if you can prove that your work expose you to the risk of contracting these diseases for example if you were sent overseas by work into an area where you were at risk of contracting malaria.

In some cases it is not necessary for you to prove that you actually contracted the disease from work is can be sufficient that you establish that there is a higher risk of contracting this disease because of the nature of your work. If you can establish that this then you are entitled to WorkCover benefits unless WorkCover can demonstrate that it actually did not come from work.

It can be very hard to claim WorkCover for very common diseases such as colds and viral infections because the exposure is so wide in the community generally.

In some cases it may be possible to obtain WorkCover benefits because you can show that it is more probable or not that you contracted condition from work. For example if a teacher contracted mumps and could show that one pupil in his or her classroom was suffering from mumps in an infectious stage then a claim may be successful.