A Fever That Looks Like Everything Else
Leptospirosis arrives disguised. The first two to five days bring high fever, severe muscle ache concentrated in the calves, headache, and red eyes, a presentation so close to dengue, malaria, or a bad viral fever that most patients and many clinicians do not think to test for it. The bacteria responsible, Leptospira interrogans, is a spirochete: a thin, coiled organism that drills through skin, mucous membranes, and the conjunctiva of the eye. It does not need a wound. Standing in ankle-deep floodwater for twenty minutes is enough exposure if the water carries it.
