China
Africa
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Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Typhus Fever
Published in James H. S. Gear, CRC Handbook of Viral and Rickettsial Hemorrhagic Fevers, 2019
Humans become infected when rickettsia-laden louse feces contaminate the broken skin; scratching the louse-bite area facilitates infection. The body louse (Pediculus humanus corporis) is the important vector of epidemic typhus (the ectoparasites of flying squirrels serve the same role). The louse dies of its infection and fails to transmit rickettsias to its offspring. Now it appears that the older concept of no animal reservoir is false, based on the discovery of R. prowazekii in flying squirrels and their ectoparasites.14 Outbreaks of typhus have been observed to begin from louse-infested patients with active Brill-Zinsser disease (recurrent epidemic typhus). Inhalation of dust containing rickettsial-infected louse feces or contamination of conjunctivae may rarely cause infection.
Pneumonitis In Rickettsial Infections
Published in Lourdes R. Laraya-Cuasay, Walter T. Hughes, Interstitial Lung Diseases in Children, 2019
Chloramphenicol or tetracycline (contraindicated in young children) therapy is indicated for epidemic typhus. Case fatality rates range from 10 to 40% in classical louse-borne epidemic typhus (which has a world-wide distribution), although there were no deaths in 33 sporadic infections reported to the Centers for Disease Control since 1976.20 Brill-Zinsser disease occurs as a recrudescence of a previous infection with R. prowazekii.
Rickettsia spp.
Published in Peter M. Lydyard, Michael F. Cole, John Holton, William L. Irving, Nino Porakishvili, Pradhib Venkatesan, Katherine N. Ward, Case Studies in Infectious Disease, 2010
Peter M. Lydyard, Michael F. Cole, John Holton, William L. Irving, Nino Porakishvili, Pradhib Venkatesan, Katherine N. Ward
Once infected and after apparently successful treatment, a patient may suffer a recrudescence of typhus (Brill-Zinsser disease) with the same signs and symptoms. This is frequently induced by stress or immune suppression.
Recurrent Fevers and Neuro-ophthalmic Disorders in a Mathematical Genius
Published in Neuro-Ophthalmology, 2021
John D Bullock, Ronald E Warwar, H Bradford Hawley
Under the Tsarist regimes in Russia, a variety of infectious diseases were quite common. In order to be a candidate for Euler’s infectious organism, it must have Russian endemicity and be causative of a disease characterised by recurrent fevers and severe ocular disability, including blindness. The following categories of organisms fulfil these criteria: [1] viruses such as Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus; [2] parasites such as Plasmodium spp., Leishmania spp., and Toxoplasma gondii; and [3] bacteria such as Salmonella typhi, Rickettsia prowazekii, Orientia tsutsugamushi, Mycobacterium spp., Treponema pallidum, Borrelia spp., Yersinia enterocolitica, Bartonella henselae, Coxiella burnetii (Brill-Zinsser disease), Staphylococcus aureus/viridans streptococci/enterococci (all causing endocarditis), and Brucella melitensis.30