A new creation by QUT designers, a hospital burrow, could rid our furry friends of this disease and save them from extinction.

A prototype is being tested at Sleepy Burrows Wombat Sanctuary near Canberra and a crowdfunding campaign has been created to fund the rollout of the invention.

The hospital burrow resembles wombats' homes in the wild, quarantines the infected animals to stop the spread of sarcoptic mange and makes administering the animal's treatment easier.

Donna Stepan from the Sleepy Burrows Wombat Sanctuary said sarcoptic mange was caused by mites and highly contagious. It impacts more than 70 per cent of bare-nosed wombats and has increased dramatically in recent years due to habitat loss, urban sprawl and extreme weather.

“Sadly we will most likely save just 8-10 in 100 manged wombats as most do die. Unfortunately, sarcoptic mange is flourishing due to human-induced environmental factors, which stress a wombat’s immune system," she said.

“There is every possibility that the bare-nosed wombat, an Australian native animal icon, will be wiped out within our lifetime so we must act now. We cannot save them all, but we will do our utmost to save as many as possible and to ensure others do not suffer for long.”

QUT's Professor Marcus Foth said it takes wombats months to succumb to the disease.

"University of Tasmania researchers said it is the most agonising disease in the animal kingdom," he said.

In August 2017, University of Tasmania's Dr Scott Carver told the ABC the disease was "the most slow, debilitating, painful death that I've seen of any animal".

Professor Foth said the hospital burrow was created after hearing the problems the Sleepy Burrows' team faced when trying to treat the disease.

"They said it was taking too long to treat the wombats and the success rates were not great. They needed a purpose-built enclosure to administer the treatment," he said.

"They needed something safe for the wombat that resembled their natural habitat to minimise their stress levels as well as something safe for the staff to administer the treatment quickly."

Professor Foth said wombat carers were temporarily trapping infected wombats as they emerged from their burrow to administer the treatment.

However, wombats are territorial animals and push each other out of burrows, meaning healthy wombats were being trapped because the infected wombats had moved burrows.

Professor Foth said the actual treatment used to fight sarcoptic mange disease had a good success rate, the problem was administering it to large numbers of infected wombats in the wild.

The hospital burrow has been designed in an L-shape to resemble burrows in the wild, constructed using materials easily disinfectable and includes flaps which allow the infected wombat to be isolated and the quick administration of the treatment.

“The burrows are to be purpose-built so sections can be lifted in order to locate a wombat underground for treatment purposes," Professor Foth said.

"This avoids the pitfalls of current approaches involving trapping and burrow flaps, leading to under-treatment and further suffering."

“The work of Donna Stepan and her dedicated team at Sleepy Burrows is extraordinary. She has saved more than 700 bare-nosed wombats in the past 10 years.

“Through her work, she has discovered that administering an oral treatment to wombats in quarantined care, rather than applying conventional topical treatments, significantly decreases treatment times and vastly improves the chances of recovery.

"We hope our campaign attracts attention to ensure the government takes notice and acts to help save wombats."

Queensland researchers have also uncovered details of wombats' secret bum-biting sex lives.