Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital

former hospital in Australia

Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, originally known as The Queens Memorial Infectious Diseases Hospital, operated from 1904 to its closure in 1996. Perched high on the banks of the Yarra River at Yarra Bend in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fairfield, it developed an international reputation for the research and treatment of infectious diseases. When it closed, it was the last specific infectious diseases hospital in Australia.

Initially the hospital was devoted to the treatment of patients with fevers. Diseases treated included typhoid, diphtheria, cholera, smallpox, poliomyelitis and scarlet fever, and in its final years, HIV/AIDS became very prominent.