Please practise hygiene, we don't want any cholera or typhoid outbreak!

Do you remember the cholera outbreak in Penang back in 1996? There were over 1,000 reported cases in Penang alone. Fortunately, there were no fatalities involved.

The cholera outbreak in Penang about 15 years ago served as a valuable lesson to Penangite to observe hygiene when preparing food. I'm not sure if our Penangite hawkers actually learnt any lesson since they don't usually eat their own food. I can still see dirty hawker outlets around Penang.

Just recently, a cholera outbreak occured in Haiti and the people there blamed the witch doctors for the outbreak.

Just like how many people tend to blame the weather, the food, the air-cond, or whatever they can think of, for their common cold infection, the Haitians believe the cholera outbreak is due to witchcraft, which was reported in TheStar a week ago, right here.

Cholera is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae. You can read the entire stuff about cholera in The Merck Manual - Cholera. If you have sudden painless watery diarrhoea and vomiting, and especially severe dehydration, please see the doctor immediately.

Another similar serious infection, which we should know about is typhoid. Just recently I saw a government advertisement on typhoid in The Star newspaper. Again, you can read the entire stuff about typhoid in The Merck Manual - Typhoid. Perhaps, I suspected that there is some small typhoid outbreak recently, which is not reported in the newspaper, which triggered the government to do a full one page ad on typhoid in The Star newspaper.

The usual symptoms of typhoid include typical flu-like symptoms (sneezing, coughing, fever), headache, muscle pains, lost of appetite, diarrhoea, vomiting, red spots on chest (there are just so many symptoms and I think you should see a doctor instead of relying on the symptoms to diagnose yourself).

If you own a restaurant in Penang, please get your workers vaccinated against typhoid (anti-typhoid jab) or you risk yourself getting a summon from the Penang Municipal Council. Read here.

One worrying thing is that some people with typhoid do not show any symptoms at all and is otherwise healthy. But, that person could still spread typhoid if he touches his faeces/urine while preparing your food. Yikes!

Oh, please practise hygiene!