A sixth infant has died from congenital syphilis amid a devastating outbreak of the disease in parts of remote Australia.
The young children have all died in Queensland, where the spate of cases emerged in 2011.
Department of Health official Sharon Appleyard told Senate Estimates that six of 13 infants with reported cases of congenital syphilis had died.
The latest death occurred in northern Queensland in January.
The sexually transmitted infection can be passed from a mother to her baby during pregnancy.
Congenital syphilis can cause miscarriages and stillbirths, or problems with a baby's brain, blood, eyes, and ears.
The bacterial outbreak is severely impacting Indigenous communities and has now spread to Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.
The Commonwealth is coordinating a national response and has committed $8.8 million over three years for testing, treatment, and additional health workers.
'It's not satisfactory'
But Labor senator Patrick Dodson said syphilis cases were rising and the response was inadequate.
"Something's not working here," Senator Dodson said.
"If this was happening in Victoria you wouldn't be standing around having a meeting; someone would be doing something and fixing the problem up.
"$8 million, people are having a meeting … it's not satisfactory."
But Department of Health official Caroline Edwards defended its work to date.
"We are also very alarmed and distressed by the changes in this particular epidemic," Ms Edwards said.
"We do take it very seriously and see it as a very important thing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia."
The department said it was looking to work with several Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations to pilot its response.
The Australian Medical Association has called for a national centre for disease control (CDC) to help control the outbreak.
But Ms Appleyard said a new, standalone authority was unnecessary.
"Because of the federated nature of governance in this country … providing national coordination in the way we do we think works best," she said.
