On the Russian front, throughout the last two years of the conflict and during the Bolshevik revolution, approximately 2. Typhus was latent in Russia long before the beginning of World War I. The mortality rate rose from 0. Soldiers and refugees imported typhus and propagated it across the country.
It was during the hard winter of —18 that the biggest outbreak of typhus in modern history began in a Russia that was already devastated by famine and war. The great epidemic started in the big cities and eventually reached the distant lands of the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia. After World War I, between and , there were five million deaths in Russia and Eastern Europe because of a third disease vectored by body lice, relapsing fever and caused by Borrelia recurrentis.
Wars are optimal conditions for body louse proliferation and their associated diseases. Thus, the control of lice with the combination of oral Ivermectin, clean clothes and insecticides will help to avoid disasters caused by typhus, trench fever and relapsing fever during humanitarian catastrophes. Bavaro, M. History of US military contributions to the study of Rickettsial diseases.
Mil Med Suppl. Bechah, Y. Epidemic typhus. Lancet Infect Dis 8, — Raoult, D. The history of epidemic typhus. Infect Dis Clin N Am 18, — Tschanz, D. Zinsser, H. Rats, lice and history: A chronicle of pestilence and plagues. Image: Fig. Coloured electron micrograph of a bacterium of the genus Rickettsia. Reproduced from Houhamdi, L and others Symptoms are similar to endemic typhus; they are, however, much more severe and can include delirium, hypotension, and even death.
High fevers, rash-like symptoms covering the body, delirium, and gangrenous sores were reported. While 3, soldiers lost their lives to enemy action, nearly 17, lost their lives to what would later be known as typhus. It is estimated that fewer than , French soldiers lost their lives to Russian soldiers, while as many as , French soldiers perished from typhus.
In the early 20 th century, French bacteriologist Charles Nicolle observed typhus patients and noticed after receiving a hot bath and clean clothes they were no longer infectious. By he correctly hypothesized that the louse is the vector for transmitting the disease from person to person.
Although he did not succeed in developing a vaccine against the disease, his discovery helped greatly on the Western Front during the First World War, when delousing stations were established. Nurses who treated the sick had an exceptionally high death rate from typhus. By the end of World War I epidemic typhus had reached its peak with more than 3 million people, mostly civilians, dying in Russia alone. Other Eastern European countries, such as Poland and Romania, lost several million citizens as well.
With no vaccine, it seemed as if typhus would be one of the most deadly aspects of the gruesome World War. During the inter-war period Rudolf Weigl, a Polish biologist and zoologist, began experimenting with lice in order to discover a typhus vaccine once and for all. He first used guinea pigs in his experiments, but by was able to use humans in large-scale testing. Then he injected the lice with R. Clin Infect Dis.
Centers for Disease Control. Epidemic typhus associated with flying squirrels--United States. Survey of three bacterial louse-associated diseases among rural Andean communities in Peru: prevalence of epidemic typhus, trench fever, and relapsing fever. A large outbreak of epidemic louse-borne typhus in Burundi. Wkly Epidemiol Rec. Labruna MB. Ecology of rickettsia in South America. Ann N Y Acad Sci. Typhus, louse-borne - Kazakhstan north ProMED-mail ; 14 Jul Accessed 1 October Letaief A.
Epidemiology of rickettsioses in North Africa. Badiaga S, Brouqui P. Human louse-transmitted infectious diseases. Clin Microbiol Infect. Autochthonous epidemic typhus associated with Bartonella quintana bacteremia in a homeless person. Am J Trop Med Hyg. Cluster of sylvatic epidemic typhus cases associated with flying squirrels, Emerg Infect Dis.
Flying squirrel-associated typhus, United States. Laboratory identification of typhus isolated by Reiss-Gutfreund from Ethiopian livestock ticks. Azad AF. Pathogenic rickettsiae as bioterrorism agents. Genotyping Rickettsia prowazekii isolates.
Rickettsia prowazekii and real-time polymerase chain reaction. Single-dose doxycycline treatment of louse-borne relapsing fever and epidemic typhus. Zh Mikrobiol Epidemiol Immunobiol. Rocky mountain spotted fever caused by blood transfusion. Emerging infectious disease agents and their potential threat to transfusion safety. Epidemic louse-borne typhus.
Facts about epidemic louse-borne typhus. Facts about epidemic louse-borne typhus Factsheet. Twitter Facebook Linked In Mail. Introduction Louse-borne typhus epidemic typhus or exanthematic typhus is a vector-borne disease caused by Rickettsia prowazekii and transmitted through infected faeces of the body louse Pediculus humanus humanus. The pathogen Louse-borne typhus is caused by Rickettsia prowazekii , an obligate intracellular gram-negative bacterium with a singular circular chromosome of 1.
Rickettsia typhi , responsible for endemic typhus, also belongs to the typhus group of the Rickettsia genus but is transmitted by fleas. Genomic analysis demonstrates two strains of Rickettsia prowazekii ; one isolated only from humans and another identified in flying squirrels Glaucomys volans which is responsible only for sporadic typhus cases.
0コメント