Okay, you've heard a million things about the cholera outbreak in PNG and I'm not going to bore you, this is just a little anecdote which i plan on using many times over in the future.
I treated a foreigner in the practice who was only visiting PNG and was asked which vaccines were necessary for travel to PNG in the future.. As a GP had given this foreigner the advise to get immunisation against cholera, i was asked whether it was necessary or not...
Well,drawing on the infectious disease lectures given to me at medical school and my two years of internship, i wisely said that we had never had any suspected cases of cholera in PNG since the 1960's and none reported in the PNG Medical Journal.. I suggested that it might be a good idea to get immunisation however the risk was extremely low..
A week after i had this conversation, the front headline of both the Post Courier and the National announced the first cases of cholera in PNG, right in the province i was working in.
You can pick the moral of the story...
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