ASIA/INDONESIA - Outbreak of leptospirosis in Bantul

Jakarta (Agenzia Fides) – State of emergency in Bantul, in the central region of Java in Indonesia. The Country's health organisations have raised the alarm following an outbreak of leptospirosis, a deadly animal disease that can lead to a high fever, internal bleeding and organ failure. Since the outbreak of the epidemic at the end of January, four people have died out of 15 infected, a fatality rate of 27%. According to a statement by the Director General of “Disease Control and Environmental Health” to the Indonesian Ministry of Health, the infection was caused by mice that continue to invade the area. Leptospirosis is spread by rats in urban slums, but also in rural areas, killing an unknown number of peasants who work barefoot in the rice fields, water buffalo and sugar cane workers. Because of poor working conditions the WHO, since 2007, estimates that about one billion farmers are at risk of infection in Southeast Asia. Outbreaks have followed the floods and hurricanes that affected the entire region. In 2010, 110 cases of infection were recorded in Indonesia, but the figures are underestimated. Research and monitoring is lacking for this pandemic that is often overlooked or mistaken for other similar diseases such as dengue fever, which, from 64,000 registered cases in 2000, has risen to 258,000 cases in 2009. In the 1990s researchers isolated some 80 of the 250 types of bacteria in Indonesia and Malaysia. (AP) (21/2/2011 Agenzia Fides)