The Public Health Ministry of Thailand said on Sunday that more than 138,000 flood victims became ill since serious floods have inundated the central and northern Thailand during the past week.

The ministry also warned people to avoid walking through floodwater, which often hosts germs and leeches.

"Please travel around by boats, if possible. If not, please dress carefully! Wear underpants and long pants. Also cover the lower part of your pants with plastic bags and tie tightly to ensure that no leech can climb in," the ministry's permanent secretary Prat Boonyawongvirot said.

According to the permanent secretary, a man in Sing Buri Province was hospitalized after wading through chest-high floodwater. At the hospital, a doctor helped remove a leech from his anus.

"He's now safe. But we would like to warn children not to play in the floodwater," he said, adding that leeches could enter human bodies via nose, mouth, eyes, anus, vagina and urethra.

Aside from leeches, he said, germs also dwelt in floodwater and could spread various diseases especially conjunctivitis, skin diseases and athlete's foot disease.

Prat said his ministry's mobile medical units had already treated 138,328 flood victims in flood-hit areas, which included the flooding provinces of Nonthaburi, Phisanulok, Sukhothai, Phichit, Nakhon Sawan, Angthong and Ayutthaya.

"We have also distributed medicines and garbage bags," he said. Currently, a large number of flood victims could not use toilets and need the garbage bags when nature called.

In Angthong, a hospital director called on people to donate eggs, rice, matches, drinking water, life vests and mosquito repellent cream to flood victims.

In Chanthaburi, acting provincial public-health chief Chumpol Suwan said the situation was worrying with more than 200,000 local people marooned in their houses amid furious torrents of floodwater.

(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2006)