Abstract

Bug Breakfast is the name given to a monthly series of hour-long breakfast seminars on communicable diseases delivered by the Division of Population Health of the NSW Department of Health. The Centre for Epidemiology and Research and the Centre for Health Protection coordinate the content and delivery of the sessions. First delivered in 1990, the purpose of Bug Breakfast is to keep participants abreast of current issues relating to the management of communicable diseases in NSW. It also forms part of the training for public health officer trainees. The audience for Bug Breakfast has grown considerably over the past 15 years. Since 1999 the sessions have been made available to rural public health sites across NSW by videoconferencing through the resources of the NSW Telehealth Initiative. Currently 11 sites (see Figure 1) are routinely connected to Bug Breakfast, with the seminar transmitted from the live site at the NSW Department of Health, North Sydney. Over a hundred people regularly participate in each session.