Scrub Typhus-An Emerging Entity: A Study From a Tertiary Care Hospital in North India.

ABSTRACT

Scrub typhus is a tropical febrile zoonotic disease caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi of the rickettsial family. These are obligate; intracellular Gram-negative coccobacilli transmitted by the bite of infected mites. It is usually underdiagnosed in India due to its varied and nonspecifi c clinical presentation, limited awareness, and low index of suspicion among clinicians and lack of diagnostic facilities. This study was planned to monitor the level of scrub typhus-specifi c antibodies among febrile patients in a tertiary care hospital over a period of 1 year for which a rapid qualitative immunochromatographic assay (Standard Diagnostics, Korea) was introduced for the detection of IgM, IgG and IgA antibodies to O. tsutsugamushi from the serum of suspected febrile patients. A total of 98 out of 772 fever patients (12.69%) tested positive for the presence of antibodies against O. tsutsugamushi. Persistent high-grade fever was the defi ning characteristic in all the cases with the presence of an eschar in only 10.2% (10/98) of cases. Three patients died during the study period while the rest responded to treatment with doxycycline.