The City Health Office (CHO) is distributing prophylaxis to all flood-hit barangays, including front-liners who took part in the response efforts, as part of its campaign to prevent leptospirosis.

Leptospirosis is a fever-causing illness associated with the rainy season and flooding. It is spread through rat urine.

At least 7,214 families were affected by flood due to torrential rains since Wednesday spawned by a low-pressure area.

Maria Christine Lim, CHO’s health education and promotion officer, said Friday the distribution of prophylaxis is coursed through health centers of flood-hit villages and at the evacuation centers.

The city disaster risk reduction and management office said 35 out of the city’s 98 villages were inundated, with 7,214 families affected.

Lim said the prophylaxis for the first responders were distributed through their respective offices.

Meanwhile, the Tzu Chi Foundation has donated 10,000 capsules of doxycycline to the CHO and the Philippine Red Cross – Zamboanga City Chapter.

Doxycycline is a tetracycline antibiotic used to treat many different bacterial infections such as urinary tract infections, bacterial pneumonia, chlamydia infections, cholera, and typhus, among others. (PNA)