health reminder

It is not just a boaters problem. Rats are common everywhere and your own garden is no exception. Garden ponds should always be regarded as suspect.

Yorkshire Water displays warnings about Weil's at the reservoir I sail at along with most others. It is a real and present danger but should not be a problem if some common sense is applied.
 
If rat pis was the killer it is made out to be half the population would be dead by now. Bloody hell the amount of people who drink direct from the can...what a load of crap.
 
I tend to agree with you Das_Boot unless there are an unusual number of pissed rats in the UK /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

Here in NZ there are, I think, less than 100 cases a year but very rarely serious - less than 1 per year die from it. Main risk here is for farm workers, especially dairy farm workers.

Only reason I happen to have even heard of Weils disease is that my sister got it very seriously, so's as they and we were sort of counting the days, and in serious state it is so rare that by the time they worked out what was wrong (even though she was living in a dairying country area) they had split her open from sternum down as far as it did not matter any more to try and find what was going on.

I have spent alot of time boating on freshwater, and trout fishing and have never heard of any warnings here about any risk of catching Weils disease in fresh water (nor from coke cans either /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif). Farm health and safety documents mention it though.
 
You probably need to take in the equivelant of a rat pissing directly into your mouth. Farm workers etc would suffer from the extreme exposure none of us do.
 
Hi Ghost,
Leptospirosis, commonly called Weill's disease is always fatal if not treated. I work in the waste management sector and it is taken very seriously.

It is a bacterial infection ( two types) carried in rats urine or from cattle. People get infected by coming into contact with the urine, either through open wounds or by transferring it onto food and eating it. The victim develops flu like symptoms which quickly develop into kidney and liver failure.

A course of antibiotics cures it. The good news is that deaths from this disease within the general public are very low. The bad news is that consequently if you present yourself to your doctor with flu like symptoms, leptospirosis wont be top of the list of possibilities.

In the waste industry we combat it through wearing gloves and good personal hygiene, but we all carry cards which we present to the medical folks should we develop any flu like symptoms. The card indicates the type of work we do, the likely exposure to rats and their by products and it reminds the doc about the disease and the importance of antibiotics.

The chances of contracting it are very small, but if you are worried about it just wash the top of your drinks can before opening it
 
You probably need to take in the equivelant of a rat pissing directly into your mouth

Must remember to remind real ships cat to make sure rat's bladders are empty before eating.

Wonder why all the kids who keep pet rats (and other rodents such as hamsters and rabbits) are not all dying from the lepto thing?

Indeed, JK Rowling has much to answer to for allowing one of her characters (Ron) to have a pet rat thus encouraging impressionable kids to put them selves at risk of death by doing the same. She even has the rat biting poor Ron - though he doesn't die, maybe cos the rat is actually a warlock in disguise (which I would have thought the bite of would be truely dangerous).

John
 
pet rats, dont usually go for walkies through sewers,
don't have to eat excrement for the reconstituted corn.
 
Drinking straight from the bottle is a filthy habit unless the top has been thoroughly washed first.

In a pub I used to frequent the cat used to sleep on top of the crates, ie on top of the crown or screwcaps. Nuff said.
 
Well I guess some of you can decide to go on a course of penicillin every time you get into fresh water, but suspect that you are succumbing to the fascination some have with diseases, especially necrophobic ones, or ones that can be associated with animals we detest (actually rats are not the main carriers of lepto, but sure is more colourful to blame it on them cos we regard them as vermin).

Look at the statistics of incidence of leptospirosis and the death rate and you will see that apart from people who have some special exposure to it, you are just plain scaremongering. There are much more dangerous things to worry about than drinking out of unwashed cans.

John
 
For heaven's sake chaps. Its an urban legend, its a load of rubbish, there is no evidence that anyone has ever caught anything from drinking out of a can (with the possible exception of alcohol poisoning).

I suppose there must be a theoretical risk, but it it is effectively zero compared to the real risks we run in life.
 
Blimey.....
just posted something as a thought, something that could effect someone, somewhere.
Scare mongering....lol
Less people are done by lightning than things like weils or lymes disease, but I fancy you'd keep yer head down in a thunderstorm.
 
just posted something as a thought, something that could effect someone, somewhere

Is that not just a verbose synonym for "wilful scaremongering"? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

John
 
sorry ghost, nothing personal. I am just surprised this keeps going round in circles. I suppose I could just stop reading it!
 
Re: Potential risk

But I am sure if you swim in the sea with an open cut there is plenty more that can get you!
Like sharks
 
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