Hos­pi­tals on the island of Min­danao in the Philip­pines are on alert for cases of lep­tospiro­sis, a bac­te­r­ial dis­ease spread by rodents, fol­low­ing trop­i­cal storm Washi.

Accord­ing to local health care author­i­ties, reports 314 cases and eight deaths in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Ili­gan in the arch­i­pel­ago. The Washi storm hit about a mil­lion peo­ple, and more than 1,250 died and 100 are still miss­ing. In addi­tion, 38,000 peo­ple have taken shel­ter in 54 evac­u­a­tion cen­ters in the area.

About 80% of reported cases of lep­tospiro­sis on the island of Min­danao were among males, median age of 26, who had been work­ing in clean-up details and thus exposed to pol­luted water. Res­i­dents who had not taken shel­ter in the evac­u­a­tion cen­ters were par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble and can­not be given med­ica­tion or treatment.

How­ever, despite the out­break, the lev­els of lep­tospiro­sis are still nowhere near those reported dur­ing Typhoon Ket­sana in 2009, when there were more than 2,000 cases and 167 deaths reported deaths. Accord­ing to the Emerg­ing Health Threats for the Philip­pine National Red Cross (PNRC), the alarm remains high.

The accu­mu­lated mud is still a poten­tial source of infec­tion. It may con­tain bac­te­ria from the car­casses of rodents or their feces and urine that remain in the soil. In addi­tion, the clear­ing of some areas will remain dif­fi­cult until the water ser­vice is resumed, seri­ously dam­aged, in the two cities. Cur­rently only a few pipelines are par­tially func­tional. The health depart­ment has dis­trib­uted rapid diag­no­sis kits to test early symp­toms of the dis­ease.
(ProMED 1/14/2012)