Chief Health Officer

About the Chief Health Officer

The Victorian Government's Chief Health Officer is responsible for a variety of statutory functions under the Health and Food Acts including closure of food premises; recall of food products, pharmaceuticals, poisons; closure of water sources, amenities, fisheries; restraint/detention of persons endangering the public health; and works approvals regarding the health consequences of mining, infrastructure projects etc.

The Chief Health Officer also acts as the Government's media spokesperson on matters relating to the control of disease and the promotion of health as required eg communicable diseases, land/air/water contamination, radiation, food safety, ethics, public health emergencies. The Chief Health Officer is also reponsible for Health Intelligence that monitors and reports on the health status of Victorians.

Dr John Carnie
Chief Health Officer
50 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne 3000
Victoria, Australia

Phone: (61 3) 9096 0376
Email: chief.healthofficer@dhs.vic.gov.au

Order under the Food Act – semi-dried tomatoes

The Chief Health Officer has made an order under the Food Act. It is designed to prevent or reduce the possibility of a serious danger to public health, and to mitigate adverse consequences.

Previous media releases can be found on the semi-dried tomatoes alert page.

Notice of Order under the Food Act - Semi-Dried Tomatoes (67kb, pdf)
CHO Advisory information for businesses importing semi-dried tomatoes or ingredients used in semi-dried tomato products (76.5kb, pdf)
CHO Advisory information Hepatitis A outbreak — Precautionary advice for Cafes, Restaurants, Take-away Outlets and Caterers (81kb, pdf)

January 2009 Heatwave in Victoria

Provides an analysis of the health impacts of the January 2009 Victorian heatwave.

Health status of Victorians

The Health status of Victorians is an Office of the Chief Health Officer's web-site that presents a range of information about the health and determinants of health of Victorians.

Your health: A report on the health of Victorians
Your health: A report on the health of Victorians 2007 is the second of two reports about indicators of the health of Victorians. It is a report from the Chief Health Officer to inform the community, including health planners, researchers, policy analysts and students about the health of Victorians.

Victorian population health survey
The Victorian population health survey 2007 provides the latest snapshot of health and lifestyle behaviours, including how the state rates on physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable intake, obesity, asthma and diabetes prevalence.

HIV and Viral Loads

The Chief Health Officer supports the UNAIDS Statement (36kb, pdf)

Bird flu

On Wednesday 14 January 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced an alert regarding an outbreak of avian influenza in Asia. Since mid-December 2003, outbreaks of avian influenza (H5N1 strain) infection have been detected in the poultry populations of the Republic of Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia. To date, there are only a small numbers of laboratory confirmed cases of H5N1 infection in humans. To date, the WHO has no evidence that person-to-person transmission is occurring, with all of the cases appearing to have been infected through contact with diseased birds.

National Information Hotline - public enquiries

A national information phone line for enquiries from the public is provided by:

Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing
Telephone 1800 004 599
8.30am to 5.00pm EST - Monday to Friday*

* A recorded message is activated after hours

More information

• Vigilance for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI or Influenza A H5N1): An update for Victorian General Practitioners and Hospital Medical Officers – December 2007
• Infectious Diseases, Edipemiology & Surveillance
• World Health Organisation
• Pandemic influenza

Bioterrorism - Use of Biological Agents and Chemicals as Weapons

Information and links about the use of biological agents and chemicals as weapons. It should be noted that Victoria has a mechanism for identifying, investigating and containing cases of communicable diseases, details of which are included in this document.

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