Many districts record outbreaks of leptospirosis in last 2 months

Officials from the State Health Department say that the outbreaks remain in control and district administration officials are working to prevent any more outbreak.

After the recent rainfall, many districts received a high number of cases of leptospirosis as rainwater increases the chances of the infection. With many districts recording a spike in fever cases, at least 35 cases were con-firmed to be of leptospirosis. Amongst the dengue outbreak, several dis-tricts including Erode, Theni and Pudukottai recorded suspected cases of Chikungunya and leptospirosis in the past two months.

“There were few cases that were confirmed to be leptospirosis when they were suspected to be dengue cases in the fever clinics. It is usually due to contamination of water that people get infected and other districts have more number of cases when compared to the city. Thus, exposure to rainwater should be avoided. However, as the monsoon has taken a wrap, the cases are coming down gradually,” said Dr Narayana Swami, Medical Superintendent, Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital.

Medicos at the government hospitals say that leptospirosis has been a ma-jor concern for the past three years, especially after the rain. Leptospirosis, also called ‘rat fever’, is a zoonotic infection that is contracted through di-rect contact of an animal and their body fluids, mostly the urine. The most common symptoms are similar to that of other vector-borne diseases such as fever, muscle pain, headache, vomiting, and tiredness.

The senior officials from the State Health Department say that more than 60 per cent of people affected due to leptospirosis were children, mainly because of exposure to rainwater. However, the cases have reduced cur-rently.

Public Health Director K Kolandaisamy said that the cases of leptospirosis started soaring after the northeast monsoon set in and the cases are reduc-ing gradually.

“The heavy rain usually washes away the larvae and the risk of contami-nation is reduced. The outbreaks were recorded in the last two months in several districts but the respective district health personnel had undertaken measures to prevent the same and there is no outbreak as of now,” he said.