Filipino health authorities said leptospirosis, a bacterial infection, has infected 1,963 people and killed 148 of them.

The outbreak occurred in areas of Manila that remained flooded nearly four weeks after Tropical Storm Ketsana struck the capital on September 26.

A three-member team was flying into Manila "in the next day or so" after the government sought help from the 140-nation Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network to fight the outbreak, Adam Craig, an official of the WHO Western Pacific regional office in Manila, told AFP.

He said the WHO was taking note that it was a "big outbreak and the number of deaths is high," even as the country's medical facilities are "overstretched," partly from heavy damage wrought by the flooding.

"We estimate a five to 10 percent mortality rate," Craig added.

He said the WHO regional office in Manila has also placed orders for rapid diagnostic test kits sought by the Philippines health department.

With 1.28 million residents still living in flooded areas, the Philippines health department estimates 1.7 million people "are at high-risk (of) exposure" to the disease and up to 3,800 could eventually get infected, the WHO said in a report.

The disease, which is transmitted mainly by exposure to contaminated urine of mammals in water in flooded areas, can lead to renal failure.

The Philippines health department earlier ordered 1.3 million people to take antibiotics to protect against disease.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Thursday that the outbreak had overwhelmed government hospitals, many of which had also suffered substantial damage from the flooding.

"The sudden upsurge of leptospirosis cases after the massive flooding caused by Tropical Storm (Ketsana) and Typhoon (Parma) brought us to a situation where we need to get into special arrangements with medical facilities from the private sector to help the government treat patients," he said.

Typhoon Lupit spares Philippines
The Philippines breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday as typhoon Lupit, now downgraded into a tropical storm, veered away from the country which is still dealing with the devastation from two previous deadly storms.

Lupit made a sharp turn northwards, away from the main Philippine island of Luzon and was forecast to continue moving northwards, the government weather station said.

As of 4:00 am Saturday (2000 GMT Friday), Lupit was charted 240 kilometres (150 miles) northeast of the northern town of Aparri, it said.

Storm alerts were lowered across the northern part of the country where relief operations had been prepared in anticipation of the arrival of a massive typhoon.

However the weather station warned residents in the north to remain on alert for flashfloods and landslides caused by continued rains in an area where the ground is already saturated from previous storms.

The government had already prepared relief goods and rescue equipment and pre-emptively evacuated more than 2,500 people from vulnerable areas during Lupit's approach.

Civil defence personnel had been overwhelmed when storms Ketsana and Parma hit Luzon, one after another from September 26, bringing the worst flooding in the region in four decades as well as massive landslides in the northern mountain areas.

About 1,000 people died due to the two storms and more than 162,000 people are still housed in makeshift evacuation centres because some of their homes are still flooded from rain brought on by Ketsana and Parma, the civil defence office said.

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