Leptospirosis deaths grow to 148 in flooded northern Philippines
Philippines, Oct 23, 2009
As of Thursday (October 22), Philippine health officials reported that the flood-borne bacterial disease, leptospirosis, had killed at least 148 people after floodwaters from two powerful typhoons - Ketsana and Parma - lingered. Infections have affected people in the capital, Manila, and outlying suburbs, while nearby provinces of Rizal and Laguna have also reported cases. The Philippine's Department of Health (DOH) National Epidemiology Center chief, Dr. Eric Tayag, said the growing outbreak prompted health secretary Francisco Duque III to issue a distress call for assistance from the international community to address the problem. The UN World Health Organization's (WHO) spokesman for the Western Pacific regional office in Manila, Adam Craig, expressed that the large number of cases in the Philippines was a "significant concern," the Deustche Press Agentur (DPA) reported, and that the UN agency has dispatched a team of experts to assist the country in coping with the outbreak. The team was made after the Philippines issued a global request for assistance in controlling the bacterial disease that has also afflicted nearly 2,000 people since the beginning of the month. According to Craig, the team, consisting of four experts on leptospirosis, epidemiology, clinical management and communications and risk, will play to the role to provide technical assistance to the government in the area of disease surveillance, clinical management and outbreak control. One of their main focuses will be on on how to get people into hospitals and how to efficiently treat them to ultimately reduce the number of deaths. Experts are expected to remain in Manila for up to two weeks, DPA reported. In response to the outbreak, government medical workers have distributed antibiotics to 1.3 million people, in addition to appealing for international assistance. The ABS/CBN News reported Tayag saying that the DOH will spray seawater in areas that were most affected by the disease. According to foreign research, the bacteria that causes leptospirosis usually is killed when exposed to salt water or direct sunlight. The Associated Press reported local officials saying that floodwaters could remain until Christmas in congested townships along the rim of Laguna de Bay near Manila. Meanwhile, another storm, Lupit, has been stalling near the country's mountainous north, and is expected to dump more rain on typhoon-weary provinces. Army troops and disaster response officials have already transported tons of food aid and rubber boats, and have evacuated villagers. Leptospirosis is a deadly bacterial infection that is transmitted when water contaminated with animal urine comes into contact with unhealed breaks in the skin, eyes or mucous membranes. The disease is able to cause kidney, liver and respiratory failure.
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