Sandi Toksvig has told how doctors feared she might have caught a venereal disease from a koala when she collapsed on tour in Australia. Months after quitting The Great British Bake Off in 2022 Sandi set off on her Sandi Toksvig is Alive tour across Australia.
She had already performed in Melbourne and Adelaide, but was clearly very ill by the time she reached Sydney. Her wife Debbie ordered her to see a doctor, who wasted no time in sending her on to A&E. "You know when things are bad when you see doctors and they start running and they don't speak to you. I thought, 'This is not good,'" she told Yours Magazine.
Sandi added: "Finally a doctor did speak to me and said, "Sandi. Have you been in contact with any koalas?" It's Australia, of course I had! It's like a thing for tourists."
The doctor explained that her symptoms indicated a case of Koala Chlamydia Pneumonia. Chlamydia is endemic in Koalas across Australia.
They're believed to have originally contracted the disease via contact with sheep or other livestock, and while the strain that the adorable little bears carry hasn't been known to infect humans directly, in Sandi's case, the doctor felt it was important to rule it out.
The idea that her life was threatened by a koala STI tickled Sandi immensely: "I was nearly dying and I couldn't stop laughing lying in a Sydney hospital with an oxygen mask on. Can you imagine if I died of Koala Chlamydia Pneumonia?"
Her condition was serious enough that it made that day's evening news, she recalls. It later emerged that she was in fact suffering from bronchial pneumonia.
It's a form of pneumonia associated with acute inflammation of the bronchi, the two large tubes that carry air from the windpipe to the lungs.
While, with appropriate treatment, most people will recover from pneumonia, it can be serious and even fatal, especially for those at higher risk, like infants, young children, the elderly, or those with weakened immune systems.
The infection left Sandi very unwell. She was forced to cancel the remainder of her tour and returned to the UK. The star recalled to the Telegraph: "When I first returned to the UK, I could hardly walk and needed two sticks to get about."
In time, Sandi, now 66, regained her strength, sharing: "I went out into the woods every day."
"First just for five minutes but gradually for longer and longer until one day I found I couldn't remember where my sticks were and I was using a chainsaw."
