scholarly journals A Life Threatening Rash, an Unexpected Cause

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Dhiraj Jain ◽  
Stalin Viswanathan ◽  
Chandramohan Ramasamy

We describe a 74-year-old man with purpura fulminans and altered sensorium following an acute febrile illness. Intensive sepsis management was to no avail, until institution of doxycycline therapy following confirmation of scrub typhus. Empirical doxycycline needs to be considered in endemic areas for patients presenting with purpura fulminans.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. e240882
Author(s):  
Ajay Chauhan ◽  
Aditya Jandial ◽  
Kundan Mishra ◽  
Rajeev Sandal

Scrub typhus is a zoonosis, which usually manifests as an acute febrile illness. It is caused by a rickettsia, Orientia tsutsugamushi, which is endemic in the Asian region. It can present with varied clinical manifestations, ranging from acute febrile illness to life-threatening multiorgan dysfunction syndrome. Central nervous system involvement in the form of altered sensorium and/or meningitis is frequently observed in scrub typhus. However, isolated cranial nerve involvement is uncommon and so far only a few such cases have been reported in the literature. We present a rare case of scrub typhus with fever and diplopia at presentation, which completely improved with doxycycline-based treatment.


Author(s):  
Puneet Saxena ◽  
Deepak Chadha ◽  
Rishika Goyal

Scrub typhus is a rickettsial disease caused by gram negative coccobacilli and transmitted through the bite of larval stage of mite. The disease is notable in the Asia-Pacific belt with few sporadic and epidemic cases reported from India as well. The disease is well identified from North Western part of Rajasthan that are the areas with dense vegetation. The clinical scenario ranges from acute febrile illness to multiple organ dysfunction by virtue of haematogenous seedling. This case series highlights the neurological manifestations of scrub typhus that are diverse and life threatening but holding dearth of literature to convoy appropriately timed diagnosis and treatment.


Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 422
Author(s):  
Rajendra Gautam ◽  
Keshab Parajuli ◽  
Mythili Tadepalli ◽  
Stephen Graves ◽  
John Stenos ◽  
...  

Scrub typhus is a vector-borne, acute febrile illness caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi. Scrub typhus continues to be an important but neglected tropical disease in Nepal. Information on this pathogen in Nepal is limited to serological surveys with little information available on molecular methods to detect O. tsutsugamushi. Limited information exists on the genetic diversity of this pathogen. A total of 282 blood samples were obtained from patients with suspected scrub typhus from central Nepal and 84 (30%) were positive for O. tsutsugamushi by 16S rRNA qPCR. Positive samples were further subjected to 56 kDa and 47 kDa molecular typing and molecularly compared to other O. tsutsugamushi strains. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that Nepalese O. tsutsugamushi strains largely cluster together and cluster away from other O. tsutsugamushi strains from Asia and elsewhere. One exception was the sample of Nepal_1, with its partial 56 kDa sequence clustering more closely with non-Nepalese O. tsutsugamushi 56 kDa sequences, potentially indicating that homologous recombination may influence the genetic diversity of strains in this region. Knowledge on the circulating strains in Nepal is important to the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines to support public health measures to control scrub typhus in this country.


Author(s):  
Sanjay Kumar Mallick ◽  
Santanu Hazra ◽  
Tanmoy Nandi ◽  
Arunabha Sarkar

Background: Scrub typhus caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, is a mite-borne zoonotic acute febrile illness. Geographically, it is confined to the Asia-Pacific region and important re-emerging infection in India. Clinical diagnosis of scrub typhus from other acute febrile illness is very difficult due to nonspecific symptoms and the relative absence of eschar in the Indian population. Case fatality rate varies from 30-70% depending on the clinical suspicion, delay in diagnosis and treatment. Antibody-based serological tests are the mainstay of diagnosis. IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) against O. tsutsugamushi is helpful for the diagnosis of scrub typhus within the first week of illness.Methods: The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of the disease in Northern districts of West Bengal, India using IgM ELISA.Results: Out of 577 serum samples tested 10.05% were positive for IgM antibodies. Majority of cases were below 40 years of age with higher prevalence in female patients. The disease showed a seasonal trend with a peak during the monsoon and later months. The case fatality rate among ELISA positive cases was 32.76%.Conclusions: Significant seropositivity against scrub typhus among cases of acute febrile illness with relatively higher mortality indicates that scrub typhus should be included in the differential diagnosis and confirmed by IgM ELISA.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajendra Gautam ◽  
Keshab Parajuli ◽  
Tshokey Tshokey ◽  
John Stenos ◽  
Jeevan Bahadur Sherchand

Abstract Introduction Scrub typhus is an acute febrile illness caused by the obligate intracellular bacterium,Orientia tsutsugamushi. Given their affordability and ease of use, antibody based diagnostic assays can be important diagnostic tools for early detection of scrub typhus fever in resource poor countries like Nepal. Immunochromatography (ICT) and IgM ELISA are two of the routinely employed antibody based assays for diagnosis of Scrub typhus fever in Nepal, although the recommended gold standard diagnostic test is IgM Immunofluorescence assay (IFA). This study evaluated the InBios Scrub Typhus Detect™ Immunoglobulin M (IgM) ELISA and IgM Immunofluorescence assays in single serum sample at the time of admission. Methodology Study participants (1585 suspected cases), were enrolled based on acute febrile illness with suspected scrub typhus cases in central Nepal from April 2017 to March 2018. Blood sample was collected from the suspected patients of scrub typhus, presenting with acute febrile illness. IgM antibody to Orientia tsusugamushi was detected by using Scrub Typhus Detect™ Kit (In Bios International, USA) and an in-house IgM IFA (Australian Rickettsial Reference Laboratory, Geelong, Australia. The IFA assay was performed with the Gilliam, Karp, Kato strains and O. chuto antigens following the ARRL protocol. Result Statistical analysis of ELISA IgM results when compared to reference test, IgM IFA results demonstrated the following characteristics, sensitivity 84.0% (95%CI: 79.73%-87.68%), specificity 94.82% (95% CI: 93.43%-95.99%), positive likelihood ratio 16.21% (95% CI: 12.71%-20.67%), negative likelihood ratio 0.17% (95% CI: 0.13-0.21%), disease prevalence 22.08% (95% CI: 20.06%-24.21%), positive predictive value 82.12% (95% CI: 78.28-85.42%) and negative predictive value 95.44% (95% CI: 94.27%-96.38%) respectively. Conclusion The study indicated that the IgM ELISA has the sensitivity 84.0% (95% CI: 79.73%-87.68%) and specificity 94.82% (95% CI: 93.43%-95.99%). Although IgM IFA is considered the gold standard test for the diagnosis of scrub typhus cases, it is relatively expensive, requires trained personal and a microscope with fluorescence filters. Scrub typhus IgM ELISA with appropriate OD cut–off values may be the best alternative test and possible viable option for resource limited endemic countries like Nepal.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-99
Author(s):  
Saheli Misra Chatterjee ◽  
Suman Mondal ◽  
Kaushik Mukhopadhyay ◽  
Niloy Kumar Das

Introduction: The disease spectrum of dengue, scrub typhus and typhoid presenting as acute febrile illness is often a diagnostic dilemma to the clinician. The purpose of this study is to compare the clinical features and laboratory parameters of children suffering from typhoid, dengue and scrub typhus and use these parameters in early identification of scrub typhus before conclusion is made from serological diagnosis. Methods: A retrospective observational analytical study was conducted among children presenting with acute febrile illness in a tertiary care level hospital. Over the period of one year 113 cases were identified of which 39 were dengue, 44 were typhoid and 30 were scrub typhus. Results: The mean age of the children was 7.45 ± 2.98 years, median was eight with an interquartile range of six to ten years. The male to female ratio was 1.3:1. Symptoms of vomiting (61.54%), headache (46.15%) and hepatomegaly (47.37%) were significantly higher among children with dengue fever. A significantly higher number of children with scrub typhus fever had temperature above 40°C. The incidence of low haemoglobin, raised C reactive protein, raised ALT and low albumin levels were significantly higher in them. Children with acute febrile illness having temperature > 40°C, absolute neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio > 2 early in the illness were more likely to suffer from scrub typhus with relative probability ratio (RPR) of 25.68 and 10.57 respectively (p < 0.001). Children with WBC < 5000/mm3 were more likely to be suffering from dengue with RPR of 10.60 (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Children with acute febrile illness with temperature > 40°C and absolute neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio > 2 early in the illness were more likely to be suffering from scrub typhus.


2017 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 1313-1315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeromie Wesley Vivian Thangaraj ◽  
Ashok Kumar Pandey ◽  
R. Sabarinathan ◽  
Winsley Rose ◽  
C. P. Girish Kumar ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
pp. 082-086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Anitha Karthikeyan ◽  
Sugeerappa Laxmanappa Hoti ◽  
Reba Kanungo

Abstract PURPOSE: Scrub typhus an acute febrile illness has diverse clinical manifestations, which overlap with other febrile illnesses. Due to this reason, it is misdiagnosed, leading to inappropriate treatment, sometimes resulting in fatality. Thus, accurate diagnosis of scrub typhus is important for appropriate treatment. This study evaluated the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay as a diagnostic test for scrub typhus among patients with fever. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 50 cases of acute febrile illness clinically resembling scrub typhus, with or without an eschar, or cases of pyrexia of unknown origin were included in the study. Blood samples collected from these cases were subjected to detection of IgM antibodies to Orientia tsutsugamushi by ELISA, conventional groEL polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and the LAMP assay. RESULTS: Twelve cases had fever for less than a week, and two had fever for more than 3 weeks. IgM antibodies to O. tsutsugamushi were detected in 37 out of 50 samples (74%). LAMP assay was positive in 33 samples (66%). groEL gene-based PCR detected 35 (70%) samples as positive. Two samples negative by LAMP assay were positive by this PCR. Twenty samples collected from patients with dengue, typhoid, and malaria tested by the LAMP assay were negative, indicating its good specificity. LAMP assay and the conventional groEL-based PCR could detect 72.7% and 74.3% of the samples, respectively before the 10th day after onset of fever, whereas IgM ELISA could detect only 40.5% of the 37 samples. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that LAMP assay could be a useful diagnostic test for detecting scrub typhus in the acute phase of the illness and a cheaper alternative to other molecular methods in resource poor settings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. e242229
Author(s):  
Manjunath Hoskote Venkatesh ◽  
Stalin Viswanathan ◽  
Jayachandran Selvaraj ◽  
Vivekanandan Pillai

This 18-year-old boy presented to the hospital with symptoms of cerebellar dysfunction preceded by an acute febrile illness with rash. Examination showed evidence of left-sided cerebellar dysfunction and polyneuropathy. Empirical treatment for leptospirosis and scrub typhus was initiated. MRI was normal. Other organ dysfunctions in the form of thrombocytopenia and transaminitis were also observed. He recovered without sequelae. A diagnosis of acute cerebellar ataxia and polyneuropathy due to scrub typhus was made.


2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-62
Author(s):  
Madiha Zainab ◽  
Atul Kumar Gupta ◽  
Suparna Guha

Introduction: Scrub typhus is an acute febrile illness caused by infection with rickettsial bacilli Orientia tsutsugamushi. This was a retrospective observational study to study the clinical profile of paediatric scrub typhus, its associated complications and response to treatmentMaterial and Methods: Record files of all patients diagnosed with positive Weil felix (OXK>1:80) and Scrub IgM positive over a period of one year were analysed. Total of 10 cases were diagnosed as scrub with median age of presentation 4.1 years.Results: Fever was present in all followed by pain abdomen (50%), rash. Anaemia (90%), lymphadenopathy (70%) hepatomegaly (100%), Leukopenia was present in those cases with fever <1 week while leucocytosis was found thereafter. Most common complication were hepatitis (100%) shock (50%), acute kidney injury (AKI) 30%, DIC in 20% cases. Secondary HLH was found in 20% and pancarditis in one case. All the cases showed dramatic response to doxycycline.Conclusion: So a high index of suspicion is required to diagnose scrub and early initiation of treatment is essential to prevent mortality from the disease.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document