After floods, Kerala is battling rat fever or leptospirosis, a water-borne disease, which has claimed over two dozen lives across the state since August 1. Due to rat fever, as many as 28 people reported having died.
At least 40 people were reported to have diagnosed with rat fever in Kerala till Sunday. Kozhikode reported 28 such cases and the rest were from Alappuzha, Thrissur and Pathanamthitta.
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Following the outbreak of the water-borne disease, the state health directorate issued an alert in five districts – Kozhikode, Palakkad, Thrissur, Malappuram and Ernakulam. However, Health Minister K K Shailaja has assured that there was no need to panic.
“Every hospital is stocked with all the required medicines,” the minister was quoted as saying. She also advised people in the flood-hit areas to take precautions and a course of doxycycline. A person suffering from rat fever gets high fever, rashes and chills. Infected rats/rodents cause the disease which generally affects the people having liver or kidney diseases. A special isolation ward has been opened at the Kozhikode Medical College hospital to treat such patients.
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