TASMANIA is doing better than most other states in the number of public hospital patients contracting the serious staphylococcus aureus infection - and it's improving.
In 2010-11, Tasmania had the same number of antibiotic-resistant patients with the bloodstream infection as the ACT but had more antibiotic-sensitive patients to contract staphylococcus than the ACT and the Northern Territory.
According to the latest federal government Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, Tasmania had six cases of antibiotic-resistant patients and shared the position as the lowest in the country with the ACT.
But Tasmania had 36 antibiotic-sensitive patients with the infection compared to 23 in the ACT and 27 in the Northern territory.
Last year however, Tasmania's antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus patients had dropped to five for the year while the antibiotic-sensitive patients had also decreased to 22. At the same time the ACT had another six antibiotic-resistant patients and 31 antibiotic-sensitive patients while the Northern Territory had 15 antibiotic-resistant and 24 antibiotic-sensitive patients.
Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory had by far the fewest number of patients who contracted the blood infection while in a public hospital.
The Health and Welfare Institute report found that in 2011-12 all states and territories had rates of the bloodstream infection below the national benchmark of two cases for every 100,000 patient days.
The national rate was 0.9 cases for every 10,000 patient days.