On our way past Ward D, Dr Lan rushes up to meet us. "We have a case of cholera!" - she beams at us. The excitement among this pack of infectious disease docs becomes palpable. We ignore an imminent ward round and make our way to see the patient. Images of an exhausted, dehydrated man enter my mind; I cannot help but think of those beds I saw outside the ICU, with a strategically-placed hole betraying their role. I am about to witness one of the great killers of the past 200 years, the plague of urbanisation and poor sanitation, the very disease which led John Snow to father epidemiology in the streets of 1850s' Soho.
We must have entered the wrong room. Sitting on the bed, a colourfully-dressed young lady looks at us, smiling. If we are in the right room, then surely this must be a relative, come to see her dying husband or brother? Not so. This patient came in five days ago, complaining of severe diarrhoea. Within 24 hours of admission, Nature was calling over ten times a day. She became dehydrated and required aggressive fluid resuscitation. Stool samples grew Vibrio cholerae. And then that was it; she just got better. Today she looks absolutely fine and is ready to go home.
The microbiologists are not entirely convinced. They weren't able to isolate that many bacteria from this patient and so we will probably never have a satisfactory answer. Be that as it may; I'm still surprised by how disappointed I was to see such a well-looking patient today.
We must have entered the wrong room. Sitting on the bed, a colourfully-dressed young lady looks at us, smiling. If we are in the right room, then surely this must be a relative, come to see her dying husband or brother? Not so. This patient came in five days ago, complaining of severe diarrhoea. Within 24 hours of admission, Nature was calling over ten times a day. She became dehydrated and required aggressive fluid resuscitation. Stool samples grew Vibrio cholerae. And then that was it; she just got better. Today she looks absolutely fine and is ready to go home.
The microbiologists are not entirely convinced. They weren't able to isolate that many bacteria from this patient and so we will probably never have a satisfactory answer. Be that as it may; I'm still surprised by how disappointed I was to see such a well-looking patient today.
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