Deadly scrub typhus bacteria confirmed in South America

Scrub typhus, a disease transmitted through 'chiggers' that kills at least 140,000 people a year in the Asia-Pacific region, may now be endemic in a part of South America, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers from Oxford University and the Pontificia Universidad Católica and Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile confirmed a cluster of cases of the life-threatening tropical disease in a large island off of Chile, more than 12,000 kilometres from its usual range on the other side of the Pacific. Scrub typhus, caused by the bacteria, Orientia tsutsugamushi , is transmitted through the bite of an infective mite, and spreads through the lymphatic fluid and blood, causing fever, rash, and laboratory abnormalities such as elevated levels of C-reactive protein and liver enzymes. 'Scrub typhus is a common disease but a neglected one. Given that it is known to cause approximately a million clinical cases and kills at least 140,000 people each year, this evidence of an even bigger burden of disease in another part of the world highlights the need for more research and attention to it,' said Prof Paul Newton, Director of the Lao?Oxford-Mahosot Hospital Wellcome Trust Research Unit (LOMWRU), which collaborated in the study. Scrub typhus has been known for years and the bacteria that causes it was first identified in Japan in 1930. It is spread by the larvae of mites - commonly called chiggers.