Malaysia Veterinary Forum (Archive)

Dr. TanDY

Case of leptospirosis under investigation

Source: Department of Health Hong Kong

Date: 13 August 2006

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health is investigating a case of leptospirosis, a bacteria-caused disease, involving a 51-year-old man.

The man developed fever, chills, headache, diarrhea, vomiting and malaise on June 24, about two weeks after visiting Malaysia. He was admitted to Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital in Tai Po on June 27 and discharged on July 3.

Laboratory tests on his blood sample yielded positive results for leptospirosis.

Investigations revealed that the man travelled to Sabah with 19 people from June 7 to 11. The CHP is investigating if the other travel collaterals had developed symptoms compatible with leptospirosis. His home contacts did not have any symptoms.

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by the bacteria leptospira which can be found in some animals including rodents, cattle, pigs, horses and dogs.

Most human infections occur through contact with urine excreted by infected mammals primarily through skin abrasions, open wounds or mucous membranes, and occasionally through ingestion or inhalation.

The disease is normally not transmissible among human, and the incubation period is usually between four to 19 days.

A CHP spokesman said people infected with leptospirosis commonly present with a flu-like illness with high fever, headache, muscle pains, red eye, sore throat and rash. In some cases, the disease can cause anemia and affect the liver, kidneys, lungs, and other internal organs. The disease can be treated effectively with antibiotics.

The incidence of leptospirosis is low in Hong Kong. There were one local case in 2001, two local cases in 2002, one imported case in 2003 and one imported and five local cases in 2004, seven in 2005 and one imported case so far this year.

“Overseas outbreaks of leptospirosis are usually related to occupational or recreational water exposures, such as water contaminated with urine of infected animals,” the spokesman said.

Dr csh · Joined: 21 Jan 2006 Posts: 427

Before anybody gets all worked up by lepto I want to stress that it is a common disease but uncommon to cause problems in people. There are many strains of Leptospira and they behave differently in different species. I like to divide them to host specific types and to 'accidental' host type of disease. If the host species is affected, they seldom get sick and the infection is usually subclinical except it may affect pregnancy but if the same bacteria gets into a different species, it may cause a pretty severe disease.

I'm not sure but I would guess the most common exposure to lepto in a place like Hong Kong would be from rat urine. Imagine millions of rat in HK but they had single digit cases each year. I'm not saying it is not a bad disease to get but just realize that your chances of getting lepto is not high unless you always get splashed by animal urine or exposed to alot of water that is contaminated with animal urine.

Dr. TanDY · Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 12:45 am Post subject:

I remember last time the people in lab (Prof Rani's Lab) next to mine in UPM were doing quite a lot of researches on Leptospira. I was told that some of their samples were from human hospitals. I browsed through their records (just being busybody) and found that one young patient (orang asli) died because of leptospirosis.