Irish Whitewater Forum

Help - Weil's disease or leptospirosis

Hi Guys,

We are trying to get a definitive list of paddlers that have become ill as a result contracting Weil's, Hepatitis or another form of illness from the Liffey. In particular it’s of interest to ascertain the exact number of cases that resulted in hospital admittance.

It would also be good to get an idea of the number of people that feel that have contracted “Sluice Belly”, you’ll know the symptoms if you’ve had it. There is a concern that this is a mild form of leptospirosis.

So whether you reckon you picked it up from Sluice, the Liffey Centre or anywhere else along the river let us know.

We are trying to get an idea of the number of cases of incidents for the HSE.

Please post here with your name & when contracted the illness. No stories of woe please, just the facts.

If you not comfortable with posting your details in a public forum than mail the details to me [email protected]

Please forward a link to this post to all the paddlers in your mailbox and help try and gauge the real scale of this problem, every report helps.

Thanks,
Shane!

Hi Sean,

First off, fair play to yourself & Shane for taking this initiative, it's great to see people looking to do the right thing. Just a quick note that Weils is a notifiable illness to the public health. Anyone seeking treatment for this are immediately referred to the public health and the incident is managed through that body. As such, the HSA should have be able to gather data on all reported incidents. They would not be given data on patients specifically though (confidentiality & all that).

It is important that if collecting this information for the HSA that peoples information is treated in strict confidence. I would recommend that people help Sean & Shane, but that you mail them privately rather than post publicly...it is a very personal issue afterall.

This has been a problem up at Palmerstown weir too, I'm aware of 2 x cases of Weils (both resulting in hospital care) from there in the last 18 months. Sean / Shane, if I can be of help to you guys on this, feel free to give me a shout at [email protected].


Best of luck


Dave Fottrell
WWKC Safety Officer

Hey Dave, just to clarify, its Shane that is behind this, fair play to him, I just relayed the message.

All the best,
Seanie