A word of warning about drinking directly from cans of drink without washing them first. Madagascar’s La Gazette de la Grande Ile (6 April 2004) reports the tale of a woman who had taken a boat trip with friends and drunk from a can of drink she’d put into the boat’s refrigerator. She was taken ill and died two days later. The postmortem revealed she had died of fulminating leptospirosis, and examination of the can confirmed it had been contaminated with rat urine, which had dried on the top.

BMJ 2004; 328:1446 (Jun 12, 2004)

Originally posted on The LBSC