NOUMÉA, New Caledonia (February 1, 2001 - Oceania Flash/SPC)---A 39-year-old woman became New Caledonia’s first recorded leptospirosis casualty of the year, the daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes reports.
The woman, whose identity was not disclosed, died on January 19 at Nouméa's Territorial Hospital, officials said.
"It's the first death caused by leptospirosis. . . for this year. The usual rate is one in a thousand," said Dr. Fabien Mérien, head of the Leptospirosis Laboratory at the Institut Pasteur.
There were 239 cases of the disease and 19 deaths recorded in 1999.
No statistics are available for the year 2000, but Mérien expects that the number of cases will be less than in 1999 due to climatic conditions that were not as conducive to the dissemination of the bacteria last year.
"We can't totally eradicate the disease, only minimize the number of cases by trying to control the population's exposure to identified risk zones," Mérien...