Scrub typhus is a disease that can sometimes be fatal to humans. Its symptoms mirror ones commonly associated with flu including headaches, fever and body aches. The bacteria can spread to humans and rodents who are bitten by the mites and are known to pass the infection on through their eggs.
Scrub typhus can also present similarly to the more common, tick-borne illness Rocky Mountain spotted fever, researchers said.
Previously, the bacteria had only been detected in Russia, Pakistan and Australia. In addition to the U.S., the bacteria have also recently been detected for the first time in the Middle East, southern Chile, and Africa, according to their research, which was published in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal.
A random sampling of the free-range mites in North Carolina revealed the bacteria’s presence in multiple recreational parks across the state — sometimes showing up in 80 to 90 percent of the mites in one location, researchers found.
Further research is necessary, they wrote, to determine how wide-reaching the occurrence of infected mites in the U.S. truly is, but said “clinicians in this region should be alert for possible human cases of illness resulting from … infection,” in the meantime.
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