Hundreds of people have helped with the campus cleanup — and potentially been exposed to the bacteria that cause the sometimes fatal disease — but neither the state Health Department nor the UH health center reported any other confirmed cases of leptospirosis.

The disease is linked to bacteria commonly found in streams throughout the state and found in any water or mud exposed to animal urine.

But only about 5 percent of people who are exposed to leptospirosis develop a serious infection, said Dr. Kate Gaynor, of the state Health Department's disease investigation branch.

As a precaution, even before Tuesday's announcement of the positive leptospirosis test, the Health Department was surveying those who helped in the cleanup to see if anyone else became ill, Gaynor said.

"It can be a serious infection, but it's generally not," she said. "We don't want them to be too afraid."

Still, she encouraged people who become ill after having been exposed to see a doctor.

"It's easily treatable with a number of common antibiotics," she said.

University officials yesterday would not release personal details about the man who fell ill, citing privacy issues. They did say he had been cleaning the Biomedical Sciences building after Manoa Stream spilled over its banks and rampaged through the campus on Oct. 30.

University spokesman Jim Manke said the man is recovering well after hospitalization.

Gaynor confirmed that the faculty member became sick in mid-November but said test results confirming the disease didn't come back until this week.

Doctors usually begin treating with antibiotics when they suspect leptospirosis, Gaynor said, noting that it normally takes from three days to three weeks after exposure for people to develop symptoms of leptospirosis. And often they don't think the headache, fever and fatigue are anything serious.

"It took him (the faculty member) a week to even go to the doctor," Gaynor said. "In most cases, it takes about a week to start feeling sick."

Dr. Lily Ning, director of University Health Services at the University of Hawai'i, said the flood prompted "quite a few" people to go to the center worrying that they may have contracted leptospirosis.

A handful of people with flu-like symptoms were tested for the disease, Ning said. But "we haven't had any positive tests back," she said yesterday.

About 500 cases of leptospirosis, including seven deaths, have been reported in Hawai'i in the past decade. Hawai'i averages 44 cases a year and has had 49 so far this year.

A Big Island college student, Simon Hultman, died in January on the Mainland from leptospirosis believed to have been contracted during a visit home over the holidays.