What is the vector for epidemic typhus?
Louse-borne typhus (epidemic typhus or exanthematic typhus) is a vector-borne disease caused by Rickettsia prowazekii and transmitted through infected faeces of the body louse Pediculus humanus humanus.
What is the causative agent of epidemic typhus?
Epidemic typhus, also called louse-borne typhus, is an uncommon disease caused by a bacteria called Rickettsia prowazekii.
What is the mode of transmission of endemic typhus?
Endemic typhus fever is not spread from person-to-person. Disease is spread by rat fleas infected with the bacteria that cause endemic typhus fever. Rat fleas become infected when they feed on the blood of a rat with endemic typhus fever.
What is the vector of Rickettsia prowazekii?
Potential role of head lice, Pediculus humanus capitis, as vectors of Rickettsia prowazekii.
What is the difference between epidemic and endemic typhus?
Endemic typhus symptoms can include rash that begins on the body trunk and spreads, high fever, nausea, malaise, diarrhea, and vomiting. Epidemic typhus has similar but more severe symptoms, including bleeding into the skin, delirium, hypotension, and death.
Where is epidemic typhus found?
Epidemic typhus fever occurs most commonly among people living in overcrowded unhygienic conditions, such as refugee camps or prisons. The disease also occurs in people living in the cool mountainous regions of Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.
How do body lice transmit typhus?
Human body lice become infected when they feed on the blood of a person with epidemic typhus fever. Infected lice then pass infectious feces when they feed.
What is the feature of the epidemic and endemic typhus fever?
Is typhus transmitted by fleas?
Flea-borne (murine) typhus, is a disease caused by a bacteria called Rickettsia typhi. Flea-borne typhus is spread to people through contact with infected fleas. Fleas become infected when they bite infected animals, such as rats, cats, or opossums.
Which is the vector of Rickettsia Rickettsii?
The Rocky Mountain wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni) is the principal vector in the western United States, while the American dog tick (D. variabilis) transmits the bacterium in the midwestern and eastern United States (7, 9, 30). Multiple factors may influence the maintenance of R. rickettsii in nature (16, 29).
How is Rickettsia transmitted?
TRANSMISSION. Most rickettsial organisms are transmitted by the bites or infectious fluids (such as feces) inoculated into the skins from ectoparasites such as fleas, lice, mites, and ticks.
When did epidemic typhus occur?
A major epidemic occurred in Ireland between 1816 and 1819, and again in the late 1830s. Another major typhus epidemic occurred during the Great Irish Famine between 1846 and 1849. The Irish typhus spread to England, where it was sometimes called “Irish fever” and was noted for its virulence.
Can typhus be transmitted?
Murine typhus is spread to people through contact with infected fleas. People get sick with murine typhus when infected flea feces are rubbed into cuts or scrapes in the skin. Most cases of murine typhus in the United States are reported in people from California, Hawaii, and Texas.
How long is epidemic typhus?
In uncomplicated epidemic typhus, fever usually resolves after 2 weeks of illness if untreated, but full recovery usually takes 2–3 months. Without treatment, the disease is fatal in 13–30% of patients. People who survive epidemic typhus remain infected with R. prowazekii for life.
Is scrub typhus a vector borne disease?
Scrub typhus is a vector-borne zoonotic disease with the potential of causing life-threatening febrile infection in humans. The disease is caused by a Gram-negative bacterium, Orientia tsutsugamushi, and is transmitted by the larval stage of mites (“chiggers”) in the family Trombiculidae.
Do animals get typhus?
Flea-borne typhus, formerly called murine typhus, is a bacterial disease found primarily in the fleas that live on animals such as cats, dogs, opossums, rats, and other backyard wildlife and is transmitted by fleas.
Is Rickettsia vector borne?
Rickettsiae are transmitted by the arthropod vector either directly through an infectious bite or via inoculation of infectious fecal material [4].
Which is the vector of Rickettsia rickettsii?
What is a rickettsial organism?
The rickettsiae are a diverse collection of obligately intracellular Gram-negative bacteria found in ticks, lice, fleas, mites, chiggers, and mammals. They include the genera Rickettsiae, Ehrlichia, Orientia, and Coxiella. These zoonotic pathogens cause infections that disseminate in the blood to many organs.