Papua New Guinea reached elimination of leprosy at the national level in 2000 with a prevalence of 0.7/10,000 population. In a District Health Centre on Karkar Island in the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea there have been 5 cases reported in the last 15 years, the last of which was 10 years ago. We report a case of leprosy that was overlooked at the Outpatient Department resulting in delayed treatment due to the lack of trained staff and the unavailability of appropriate drugs. The patient was referred to the Disease Control Unit at the Modilon Provincial Hospital and commenced on multi-drug therapy 5 weeks after the initial diagnosis. This case report highlights the importance of continuous health care provider training and community awareness on diseases that have been eliminated in some provinces but not others.

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a serious public health problem in Papua New Guinea (PNG). A key element in the prevention and control of TB is for people to have the correct, appropriate and relevant information regarding TB and its prevention and treatment. In PNG, there is no published information about the knowledge of TB among the general population. An understanding of people’s knowledge of various aspects of TB is important in developing interventions to address the burden of TB. This study aimed to assess the knowledge of TB among the local population in PNG. We used a cross-sectional study to understand people’s levels of knowledge regarding TB in three sites in PNG: Hiri, Asaro and Karkar Island. A total of 1034 people aged 15 years and above participated in this study from May to December 2013. Our study showed different levels of TB knowledge between sites 79% of respondents in Hiri, 27% in Asaro and 23% in Karkar correctly identified TB bacteria as the leading cause of TB. The only site at which respondents gave four correct symptoms of TB was Hiri (7%). Coughing out air droplets was identified as the main mode of transmission by 84% of respondents in Hiri, 33% in Asaro and 71% in Karkar. A tiny proportion of the participants in Hiri (4%) knew the three correct ways of TB prevention. Despite the availability of free TB treatment only 45% of respondents in Hiri, 18% in Asaro and 46% in Karkar knew about it. In Hiri, 58% of the participants knew the TB treatment duration of 6-9 months, compared with 36% in Asaro and 33% in Karkar. A health facility was the most common source of TB information in all three sites. Providing accurate and relevant information about TB through public health education strategies is urgently required to help in addressing the current TB crisis