A special medical team will be despatched to Cherunniyoor in Varkala in the district where a 15-year-old girl died of scrub typhus, Health Minister, Veena George, said in a statement here on Thursday. All primary details have been collected by a team from the district medical administration. A team from Government Medical College, Kollam, will also visit the locality. Preventive measures would be strengthened in the area
The zoonotic infectious disease is spread by the bite of chigger, a microscopic mite. The bite transmits the organism Orientia tsutsugamushi which causes the infection. The mite is usually present in shrubberies, and the disease is transmitted mostly during the rainy season and in winter. The disease, incidence of which has been increasing in the State, is under the surveillance of the State’s Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme since January 2012
Scrub typhus is easily treatable with antibiotics, but late or wrong diagnosis can lead to liver or renal failure, circulatory collapse and even death, doctors warn. The symptoms and non-specific and resemble the symptoms of other tropical fevers like fever, headache and myalgia. The presence of a characteristic eschar (deep scab wound at the bite site) is the distinguishing clinical symptom of scrub typhus. However, this is usually found in the groin or armpit and because patients might not associate it with their fever, they would fail to mention it to the doctor, thus delaying the diagnosis.
