THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF SCRUB TYPHUS ALL OVER THE WORLD: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW
PEI-YING PENG *
Qujing Medical College, Qujing 655011, Yunnan Province, China.
YA-PING CAI
Yunnan Provincial Health and Rehabilitation Center, Kunming 650300, Yunnan Province, China.
LEI XU
Qujing Medical College, Qujing 655011, Yunnan Province, China.
YAN-JING ZHA
Qujing Medical College, Qujing 655011, Yunnan Province, China.
BEN-SHOU YANG
Qujing Medical College, Qujing 655011, Yunnan Province, China.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Scrub typhus, a bacterial infection caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, is cumulatively recognized as an important cause of pyrexia in Asia, with an estimated one million infections occurring per year. Scrub typhus is a natural focus disease transmitted to humans after being bitten by chigger mites and its host were mainly rodents especially rats. It has a great influence on the combat effectiveness of the armed forces and had caused a large number of non-combat attrition in the past. It is considered an emerging or re‐emerging disease in several countries. There are no authorized vaccines, or vector control efforts in place. As a neglected disease, there is still a large gap in our knowledge of this disease, as evidenced by the sporadic epidemiologic data and other related public health information regarding scrub typhus in its endemic areas. Our objective is to provide a comprehensive review of current epidemiology of the disease all over the world to attract great attention of the governments.
Keywords: Scrub typhus, Orientia tsutsugamushi, epidemiology, all over the world.