Word for Word

1 Aug 2016

The Silent Terrorist – TB in PNG

Health, Science & Medicine

Walkley award winning journalist and author Jo Chandler has filed reports from some of the most challenging places on the planet including sub-Saharan Africa, Antarctica and Afghanistan, yet it was closer to home that her life was most threatened.

In 2011, while on assignment for The Age newspaper, Jo travelled to Daru Island in the Torres Strait.  Located just off the southern coast of Papua New Guinea, Daru is home to approximately 20,000 people and a short ride in a tinny from Australia’s most northern tip of Cape York Peninsula.

Daru is also home to the world’s worst outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis – the silent terrorist on Australia’s doorstep and the killing machine that kidnapped Jo Chandler’s health for two years.

In her radio debut, Jo Chandler returned to Daru for ABC Radio National’s Background Briefing.  Her report “Ebola with Wings: the TB crisis on our doorstep” has just been nominated as a finalist for the Australian Museum’s Eureka Prize for Science Journalism.  Congratulations Jo!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:50 — 51.1MB)

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