Muntinlupa to shoulder hospital bills of leptospirosis patients

MANILA, Philippines - The Muntinlupa City government said yesterday it will shoulder the treatment and hospitalization of all residents found to have contracted leptospirosis.

The Muntinlupa City Health Office (CHO) confirmed that two persons – one from Barangay Bayanan and one from Barangay Alabang – died of leptospirosis.

According to local health officials, 38 leptospirosis cases were recorded in the city, four of whom are confined at the Ospital ng Muntinlupa.

Mayor Aldrin San Pedro said the other affected residents will be treated for free at the city-owned Ospital ng Muntinlupa in Alabang.

He added the city government has been intensifying efforts to inform residents in flooded areas of the dangers of contracting leptospirosis. City health personnel were also ordered to visit residents staying in flooded homes.

San Pedro said he is coordinating with the Department of Health (DOH), which already agreed to provide 240,000 capsules of doxycycline, an antibiotic used to treat leptospirosis.

The CHO said the medicine will be used as prophylaxis or preventive medicine for residents in flooded areas. Each will be given one capsule of doxycycline per week as a preventive measure against leptospirosis.

However, the drug will not be administered as prophylaxis to children nine years old and below, those whose body weight are 45 kilos and below, and pregnant women.

According to the DOH, a person can be infected with ;eptospirosis through the “entry of the leptospira bacteria in wounds especially when a person come in contact with flood waters, vegetation, and moist soil contaminated with the urine of infected animals, particularly rats.”

Among the symptoms of the disease are fever, muscle pain, headache and discoloration of the skin.

San Pedro advised all residents showing any of the symptoms to immediately go to the Ospital ng Muntinlupa, the CHO or barangay health center for checkup.

In Caloocan City, Mayor Enrico Echiverri said the President Diosdado Macapagal Memorial Medical Center is fully equipped and ready to handle leptospirosis cases if an outbreak occurs in the city.

“The city government will also provide medicines for residents who would be afflicted with leptospirosis,” he said.

City health department chief Dr. Racquel So-Sayo said the city continues to be leptospirosis-free, but health workers will still continue to conduct information drives against leptospirosis and other water-borne diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera and hepatitis.  – Rhodina Villanueva