LEPTOSPIROSIS has made the headlines again after 40 people were quarantined at the Tanah Merah Hospital in Kelantan recently following the death of a man from what was initially suspected as a viral infection. The Health Ministry later confirmed that they had detected leptospirosis in three out of 12 victims with respiratory infection symptoms and all of them had attended a family gathering in Kajang two weeks earlier.
This latest incident has brought up memories of a similar case at Lubuk Yu waterfall in Maran, where eight people succumbed to the bacterial infection also known as kencing tikus (rat urine) when they joined a search-and-rescue (SAR) mission to locate a drowning victim in 2010. The recreational forest was later closed for three months due to the incident.
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