Leptospirosis comes off the farm to claim first death

By JANET TYSON and KATHERINE HOBY

Helensville fisherman Ken Scott was a fit 48-year-old, his only health worry being recurring back pain from an injury suffered when flounder fishing as a teenager.

When he started getting aches and pains again just before Christmas, he thought the old problem had flared up. But on January 1, when he developed a high fever, he was urgently admitted to the renal unit in Auckland Hospital.

Blood tests showed only a general infection.

His condition deteriorated, although he stayed conscious.

By the time Mr Scott was moved to intensive care, he was yellow with jaundice, and bleeding from the gums.

On January 3, he cheerfully told his wife, Lorene, that doctors had pinpointed the problem. It was leptospirosis - formerly known as "dairy farm fever" - and could be treated with antibiotics and a few weeks in hospital.

The news gave him a huge boost, Mrs Scott said.

He was teasing her about her coffee habit, and her stepson about the dishy nurses on the ward.

"They think it's lepto, and they're going to kill it," he said.

Instead, leptospirosis killed him.

At 6 pm his shocked family were called back to the hospital to say goodbye. His heart had failed.

They sat with him through the night, and at 5 am he died. The disease had attacked his system to such an extent, damaging his kidneys and liver, that treatment was in vain.

It came as a total shock. Later that morning, the emergency doctor who had arranged Mr Scott's admission to hospital called to ask how he was.

"When I told him Ken was dead, he said, 'It can't be leptospirosis. No one dies of leptospirosis'," Mrs Scott said.

Ken Scott's death is thought to be the first from the disease in New Zealand. Rats at Helensville wharf are believed to be the source of the infection.

Endurance athlete Steve Gurney was nearly killed by a strain he caught at an event in Borneo in 1994. Because it is not a well-known disease, it may have been the cause of other undiagnosed deaths in this country.



New Zealand has a relatively high rate of leptospirosis infection, with at least 100 cases each year. It can be fatal, yet some victims do not know they have had it at all.

Thirty years ago, leptospirosis was well-known in rural areas. More than 800 cases were recorded in the worst year.

A vaccine, developed by the Women's Division Federated Farmers (now Rural Women New Zealand), and other control measures have reduced the overall incidence of the disease.

Dairy farm workers still have a high risk of infection if they work with unvaccinated cows.

Anyone who comes in contact with animal urine, or water contaminated with animal urine, can catch leptospirosis.

The leptospire bacteria thrive in water - rivers, effluent ponds, and on damp soil and pasture.

The main source of infection was traditionally cattle, sheep, deer and pigs. But figures now show that 20 per cent of infections are from another strain carried by rats, mice and hedgehogs.