KANTALE, Sri Lanka, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Doctors treating hundreds of sick and injured war-displaced in northeast Sri Lanka worry the arrival of monsoon rains could trigger epidemics such as chicken pox in overcrowded refugee camps.

Staff at hospitals and camps clinics in and around the town of Kantale, around 125 miles (200 km) northeast of the capital Colombo, are already stretched trying to cope with diarrhoea, respiratory problems and wounds.

There are 29,000 newly displaced living in dozens of camps here in a town that normally caters to 45,000 inhabitants.

"With the rains, I think there will be a problem. Just now the rainy season has started. We may get malaria and possibly dengue also. In addition to that, we have diarrhoea," said Dr. D.G.M. Costa, medical superintendent at Kantale Base Hospital.

"In the camps people are in a very congested area, and a lot of children are there. Because of the congestion, we might get some form of epidemics, like chicken pox and other communicable diseases."

Heavy rains have already started in some areas in the northeast and are expected to take hold in earnest in September and run for around two months.

Hundreds of troops, Tamil Tiger rebels and civilians have been killed in the fighting in the past month, and more than 200,000 civilians have been displaced from their homes and are living in tent cities, churches and mosques across the island.

Some displaced are already leaving the tent cities in Kantale to move to camps nearer to their homes in areas left ravaged by fighting between the rebels and the military.

Doctors say many camp dwellers, including a large number of Muslims, are reluctant to take medical treatment. Others are simply ignorant, compounding the threat of an epidemic.

Standing in the doorway of Kantale's largest camp, home to more than 5,000 people, 11-year-old Mohamed scratches patches of pink, bleeding skin on his dark-skinned arms, where disease took hold after he was burnt during an artillery shell explosion.

His face and his legs were also badly burnt.

Mohamed's father said he did not understand the medical prescription his son was given, and was not told where to go.

"This could be teated so easily," said Lars Stuewe, a German doctor who helped set up a new field hospital in Kantale to cope with the overflow of war-displaced from the main hospital.

Stuewe said the boy was advised to go the base hospital in Kantale for treatment of his wounds and for physiotherapy, but he never showed up.

"But this is general ignorance among the people that they are not following doctors' advice."

Stuewe's field hospital, funded by the International Committee of the Red Cross, sits in the playground of a primary school a mile away from the main hospital as a security precaution.

There are 13 white field tents which offer 60 beds -- half the capacity of the main hospital. The ground has been covered with stones as a precaution against flooding.

"Most of our cases are airway diseases, allergic reactions, bronchitis. We also see old shrapnel wounds," said Dr. Susantha Amarasinghe, inspecting an 11-day-old infant with an umbilical cord infection. "We've had no epidemics yet."

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