This month, a fever outbreak was reported in the Shindewadi village in Pune district that claimed the lives of two children and also affected 90 others. According to recent investigations, epidemic louse-borne typhus could be the likely reason for this fever outbreak. Due to the unavailability of the confirmatory test kit in India, microbiologists from a state- run college sourced the kit from US-based laboratories. Going by the preliminary investigations, it could perhaps be the first reported outbreak of the epidemic typhus in the country.
Louse-borne typhus fever is the only rickettsial disease that can cause explosive epidemics. According to the WHO, the case-fatality of epidemic typhus is up to 40% in the absence of specific treatment. The epidemiological picture of the outbreak and other presumptive investigations strongly indicate that it is epidemic louse-borne typhus. But a…
