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Oxford Textbook of Zoonoses$
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Oxford Textbook of Zoonoses (2 ed.) : Biology, Clinical Practice, and Public Health Control

Edited by S.R. Palmer, Lord Soulsby, Paul Torgerson, David W. G. Brown

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Print Publication Date:
Jul 2011
Print ISBN-13:
9780198570028
Published to Oxford Medicine:
Jul 2011
DOI:
10.1093/med/9780198570028.001.0001

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Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up to date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulations. The authors and the publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this work. Except where otherwise stated, drug dosages and recommendations are for the non-pregnant adult who is not breastfeeding.

Contents

Scrub typhus

Chapter:
Scrub typhus
Author(s):

Emmanouil Angelakis,

Didier Raoult

DOI:
10.1093/med/9780198570028.003.0013

Bacteria of the genus Rickettsia are obligate intracellular rods that retained basic fuchsin when stained by the method of Gimenez. This genus has long been used as a generic term of small intracellular bacteria. However, taxonomic progress made over the last years has deeply modified the definition of “rickettsia”. As a result, in 1995 the position of R. tsutsugamushi has reclassified from the genus Rickettsia into a separate new genus, Orientia (Tamura et al. 1995).

Scrub typhus, also known as ‘tsutsugamushi fever’, occurs only in Asia and is a chigger-borne zoonosis. The disease is acute, febrile, potentially fatal and has been known for centuries in China where it was probably described as early as in the fourth century BC (Parola and Raoult 2006). These last years this infection has been re-emerging because of descriptions of strains of O. tsutsugamushi with reduced susceptibility to antibiotics and of the surprising interactions between scrub typhus and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is estimated that more than a million cases of scrub typhus are transmitted annually in Asia and more than a billion people are at risk (Rosenberg 1997).

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