Epidemic scabies and acute glomerulonephritis in Trinidad

ABSTRACT

In September, 1970, an increasing number of the patients admitted with acute glomerulonephritis to San Fernado General Hospital in Trinidad were noted to have skin lesions characteristic of scabies. á-haemolytic streptococci were isolated from these lesions and also from similar scabetic lesions in members of the patients' families, in " normal" schoolchildren, and in the general population of a small village. Concomitantly, many dogs in nephritic households, as well as others running wild, were observed to have lesions compatible with scabies from which á-haemolytic streptococci also were isolated. Sarcoptes scabiei were indentified in lesions of both patients and dogs and were morphologically indentical. After the onset of this infestation with scabies, the admission-rate of patients with acute proportions which have proved, since this study, to be the beginning of the largest epidemic of acute glomerulonephritis yet recorded in Trinidad.(AU)