Leptospirosis Case Reported

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31306, 28 February 1967, Page 18

Leptospirosis Case Reported

A case of leptospirosis involving a farmer in his twenties in the Rangiora district is being investigated by the Health Department.

“Nearly always these cases are occupational and involve farmers,” the medical officer of health in Christchurch (Dr. L. F. Jepson) said yesterday. “In this case, the man is a pig farmer, and we have noti-

fied veterinarians of the Department of Agriculture so that the condition of stock can be investigated, and they can be treated if necessary.” The disease was caused by bacterial infection, and usually occurred through abrasions of the skin becoming infected from the urine or blood of animals.

Leptospirosis was similar to brucellosis and caused general lethargy and tiredness. The illness could be treated by antibiotics, but could have a debilitating effect for a long period.

Dr. Jepson said death from the disease was rare in New Zealand among otherwise healthy people, but it could cause chronic disablement.

Every case reported to the department was followed up to prevent the spread of the disease among animals. The last case was in November.

Most cases in New Zealand occurred in the Waikato, he said, and there a trial of an Italian vaccine for the immunising of humans was being carried out with the co-opera-tion of Federated Farmers

and the National Health Institute, Wellington. Other diseases notified to the Health Department last week were two cases of infective hepatitis involving a teenage girl and a man in his thirties in the Rangiora district; two cases of pulmonary tuberculosis, one a man in his fifties from the Lyttelton area and the other a Riccarton man in his forties; and two non-pulmonary tuberculosis cases in the city area—one a woman in her eighties and the other a young boy.