Latest news with #Rickettsia
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Schoolboy, 12, dies from horrific head lice infestation after fighting for life
Amador Flores Vargas was rushed to hospital after being bitten by the blood-sucking bugs, but he was unable to fight off the severe infection A 12-year-old schoolboy has died after a horrific head lice infection led to septic shock and liver failure. Amador Flores Vargas's family rushed the young lad to hospital after noticing he was severely dehydrated and had a fever that couldn't be brought under control. For two weeks, the boy fought for his life while a typhus-spreading bacterial infection called rickettsiosis ravaged his body. It had been transmitted by blood-sucking lice in his hometown of Sabinas, in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Amador was treated in Coahuila's Mother and Child Hospital, but doctors found he was already suffering from advanced liver failure and septic shock caused by a massive louse infestation. Despite being pumped full of emergency antibiotics, Amador's condition rapidly worsened and he died on June 2, to the horror of his family. Hospital director Francisco Iribarren explained in a press conference that the boy had been infected for at least eight days before he was brought to the clinic. "The young man arrived in very compromised conditions; he had liver alterations, failure in platelet production and an advanced septicaemia," he added. Because of the rarity of the disease, local authorities have imposed a sanitary cordon on the family's neighbourhood to prevent the parasite from spreading, with a pest extermination team searching for further infestations. And epidemiologist Alfredo De León Camacho has recommended that the local population seek immediate medical attention if they present symptoms including persistent fever, rashes or general discomfort, especially if they have recently come in contact with parasites. Rickettsiosis is caused by bacteria from the Rickettsia genus, which can be spread to humans by bites from fleas, ticks, mites or lice. If left untreated, the infection can lead to blood poisoning and become life-threatening or even fatal. Other symptoms of rickettsiosis include headache, swollen lymph nodes, muscle pain, stomach pain, fatigue and nausea and vomiting. While rickettsial diseases occur all around the world, in some areas certain types are more prevalent. In the United States, the most common is rocky mountain spotted fever, which is spread by infected adult ticks. In South Africa, Korea and large cities in Russia, Rickettsialpox is more usual to see - spread by mites that live on mice. Meanwhile, Boutonneuse fever is concentrated in Mediterranean countries like Spain, Italy and Israel, commonly transmitted by ticks carried by dogs and cats. And Murine typhus is prevalent all around the world, especially in cities with high rat infestations. While rickettsial diseases are rare in the UK, they can appear in the population as a result of travelling to a country where the infection is present. Typhus can be transmitted by infected fleas, mites and lice that live on small animals like dogs, cats, rats, mice and squirrels, and can be carried by humans on their skin, hair and clothes. Typhus is mostly found in Asia, South America and parts of Africa, particularly in places where public hygiene is poor, living conditions are typically overcrowded, or there is plenty of grassland or bushes for fleas and lice to hide in. The NHS explains that while there is no vaccine to prevent typhus, travellers can lower their risk of being infected by wearing long-sleeved tops and trousers, using insect repellent containing DEET, washing regularly, and changing clothes frequently when visiting areas with high rates of typhus.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New strain of bacteria in tick discovered at UMass Amherst
AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) – A lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst discovered a new strain of bacteria in a tick last week. Researchers found that this has the potential to infect people with Spotted Fever, and now, with the warmer weather and more people outside, officials are sounding the alarm. This finding came from testing in someone's backyard, but now researchers are hoping this was an exception and not the expectation. Western Massachusetts sees record spring temperatures Spotted Fever Rickettsioses is the main danger of bacteria found in this new strain of Rickettsia. The UMass lab working on Project ITCH is a part of the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases. 22News spoke with microbiologist Stephen Rich, who told us how they came upon the discovery. 'As part of that study, we actually tested for a rare set of pathogens that we usually don't see, and we discovered something that's altogether different that we've never seen before,' Rich said. The study tracks how tick control across the U.S. is working in different areas. These samples are collected from across the country and sent here to UMass Amherst, but this new strain was actually collected in New England by the University of Maine. 'In California, that was found in people, so it can get into people and it can be deadly,' Rich said. 'In this case, we saw it in rabbit ticks, which don't feed on people, and so we think we're catching it very early here in the east.' This new genotype of Rickettsia, species ME2023, could infect people with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. The rare disease can be fatal without treatment. While there is no way to stop the spread of this bacteria among ticks, researchers will be keeping an eye on this new data. 'The main thing is that we want to make sure that it's in this rare tick that doesn't feed on people,' Rich said. 'What we want to make sure is that it doesn't spill over into other ticks that do feed on people.' Luckily, there is no current risk to the public, but the CDC says you should wear tick repellent and long sleeves while walking through wooded areas. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
25-04-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Rabbit ticks carrying bacteria that causes life-threatening fever discovered in Maine by UMass Amherst scientists
The discovery was made in a residential backyard in Maine where researchers were collecting rabbit ticks and testing them for pathogens, according to The new bacteria, Rickettsia sp. ME2023, can cause spotted fever rickettsioses in humans, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which has a death rate of 20 to 30 percent if not treated promptly with the antibiotic doxycycline, the statement said. When the ticks from Maine tested positive for a bacteria like the one that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Guang Xu, a research professor of microbiology at UMass Amherst, conducted DNA testing that identified a distinct new strain, 'unlike any other known strain,' but similar to one that caused severe cases of fever in California a few years ago, the statement said. 'We now know there is something different, something novel, than what was previously known,' Stephen Rich, a microbiologist at UMass Amherst, said in the statement. Advertisement Although rabbit ticks can be found throughout North and South America, they are uncommon in New England. Deer ticks, which are carriers of Lyme Disease, and dog ticks are the ones that most commonly bite people, researchers said. 'So, it was a mystery,' Xu said. 'Why are there some cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in New England? This finding may solve part of the puzzle. Maybe the rabbit ticks are the vector.' Advertisement The discovery was made by scientists working on Researchers next plan to work with rabbit hunters in Massachusetts to collect more ticks and further their understanding of the potential impact on public health, Rich said. Collaborating researchers at the University of Maine sent UMass Amherst more rabbit ticks to test. The test results showed that out of 296 ticks collected from 38 towns in nine counties in Maine, 6.1 percent tested positive for the new Rickettsia genotype, according to the statement. 'This wasn't a needle in a haystack,' said Rich, executive director of the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Diseases at UMass Amherst. 'It looks like lots of the rabbit ticks there have this pathogen.' Though rabbit ticks don't often feed on people, researchers are eager to figure out the risk and possibility of 'spill over' into ticks that bite both rabbits and people. 'For example, a deer tick could feed on a rabbit and pick up this infection from the rabbit tick and potentially infect a person with that,' Rich said. But some experts on tick-borne diseases and disorders caution that the rabbit tick research is still in the early stages. While the findings are 'interesting,' it is 'premature to say that it has any public health significance,' said Sam Telford III, professor and director of the department of infectious disease and global health at Tufts University. Epidemiological studies are needed to make that determination, Telford said in an email. 'There are many infectious agents that are maintained by ticks, but relatively few of them have been demonstrated to cause human disease,' Telford said. 'This demonstration rests on actual case reports of human disease.' Advertisement Professor Thomas Mather, who heads the Tick Encounter Resource Center at the University of Rhode Island, said that since rabbit ticks rarely bite humans they probably don't 'represent much of a direct risk for humans.' Out of more than 85,000 photos of ticks submitted to the University of Rhode Island's tick survey, only two or three were this type of rabbit tick, Mather said. 'People rarely encounter them,' he said. 'But, it definitely could help the new strain circulate more widely in nature with an increasing risk for spillover' from ticks that do bite humans, Mather added. Spotted-fever infections, typically spread by dog ticks, have climbed in the past two decades in the United States from 495 cases in 2002 to a peak of 6,248 in 2017, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of the cases between 2018 and 2022 were from Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee, according to the CDC. Tonya Alanez can be reached at
