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Tuesday, July 3, 1973
CLEANLINESS MORE IMPORTANT THAN INOCULATION
The Director of Medical and Health Services, Dr. G.H. Choa, said
today the public should begin to realise that "to prevent cholera it is more
important to focus attention on environmental cleanliness and personal hygiene
than on inoculation."
In a second preventive statement issued at the start of the cholera
season, traditionally associated with the hot weather, Dr. Choa said: "Experience
since 1961 from the usual cholera breeding grounds in Southeast Asia shows
that the use of cholera vaccine alone has not been entirely successful in
preventing the spread of the disease.
"Therefore the most reliable, and the safest, measures are to
ensure cleanliness in the preparation and consumption of food, and good
personal hygiene."
He explained that the latter meant the washing of hands before meals
and after visits to the toilet, "because the oholera vibrio, or disease germ,
cannot enter the human body unless it is swallowed."
Food and drink could be contaminated by dirty hands. The disease
could also be transmitted by a fly carrying the germ if the insect were
permitted to settle on food, he said.
In the meantime, departmental measures being taken to prevent any
outbreak of cholera, and to locate possible carriers of the disease, include
the testing of nightsoil and samples from all cases of diarrhoes that come to
light.
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