Delayed correlation between the incidence rate of indigenous murine typhus in humans and the seropositive rate of Rickettsia typhi infection in small mammals in Taiwan from 2007-2019

• Published in: PLoS neglected tropical diseases 2022-04, Vol.16 (4), p.e0010394-e0010394
• Main Authors: Chiang, Pai-Shan, Su, Shin-Wei, Yang, Su-Lin, Shu, Pei-Yun, Lee, Wang-Ping, Li, Shu-Ying, Teng, Hwa-Jen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Airports; Analysis; Animals; Antibiotics; Antibodies; Antigens; Biology and Life Sciences; Care and treatment; Coastal zone; Correlation; Diagnosis; Disease control; Fever; Harbors; Humans; Illnesses; Incidence; Infections; Infectious diseases; Mammals; Medical laboratories; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mice; Murine typhus; Pathogens; People and Places; Physicians; Rickettsia typhi; Rickettsiales infections; Risk factors; Serodiagnosis; Shrews; Siphonaptera - microbiology; Small mammals; Surveillance; Taiwan - epidemiology; Tropical diseases; Typhus; Typhus, Endemic flea-borne; Typhus, Endemic Flea-Borne - epidemiology; Typhus, Endemic Flea-Borne - microbiology; Vectors (Biology); Zoonoses
• ISSN: 1935-2735; 1935-2727; 1935-2735
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0010394

Murine typhus is a flea-borne zoonotic disease with acute febrile illness caused by Rickettsia typhi and is distributed widely throughout the world, particularly in port cities and coastal regions. We observed that murine typhus was an endemic disease (number of annual indigenous cases = 29.23±8.76) with a low incidence rate (0.13±2.03*10-4 per 100,000 person-years) in Taiwan from 2007-2019. Most (45.79%, 174/380) indigenous infections were reported in May, June, and July. The incidence rates in both May and June were statistically higher than those in other months (p