Don't shoot the messenger.

[Peg]

I'm just the bearer of bad news, sorry

 

http://www.statesman.com

 

 

Typhus in Austin: Should health department have warned us sooner?

By Mary Ann Roser | Friday, August 8, 2008, 10:48 AM

 

For the first time in decades and possibly ever (officials say they are unaware of cases before 2007), Austin is experiencing a typhus outbreak. The Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department didn’t put the word out until asked about it by reporters — although it said it was about to alert doctors and the public when the media beat them to the punch Wednesday.

 

“We didn’t get a good handle until the last four weeks,” Jill Campbell, a disease surveillance program supervisor for the health department told the Statesman in an article today. Campbell also said the health department didn’t put out information because no one had died and it didn’t seem urgent.

 

The health department usually notifies the public pretty quickly when it thinks someone might have touched a rabid bat. Rabies is almost always fatal.

 

Typhus can be deadly if left untreated, but the kind of typhus the health department thinks Austinites have, murine typhus (typically found in South Texas), kills less than 5 percent of people if untreated by antibiotics. But the health department doesn’t know yet what type of typhus is going around.

 

This is what officials do know:

 

Typhus is spread by fleas that feed off of rodents, opossums and cats and then the fleas bite humans. So because it’s not spread person-to-person it doesn’t create a more common public health threat.

 

Two people last summer diagnosed with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever turned out to have typhus, which the health department learned in March, Campbell said. Then, in April, the health department learned about new cases of typhus in people, mostly in Central Austin, and more cases were reported through mid-July. That makes 15 known cases in Travis County since July 2007, and 13 in this year’s outbreak.

 

Ten of the 13 people who were infected have been hospitalized. That’s a pretty high rate, but it might only mean that doctors didn’t immediately know what they were dealing with and were being cautious, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

A local pediatrician said the children she saw were not that ill. A man quoted in today’s story, however, said his son, Louis Kolker, missed a month of school and still doesn’t feel right.

 

If the health department had alerted people sooner, would people have been more vigilant about protecting themselves, their pets and their property from fleas? Would doctors have been able to diagnose people faster? What do you think?

 

[Granny]

What do I think? A health advisory (not same as health alert) could have been issued to both the medical community and general public on a timelier basis. If for nothing else, to remind people to adhere to basic common sense of flea control to reduce their risk to a number of vector borne diseases, and, to seek medical treatment if symptomatic. Early notice to medical folks would also have given them a heads up to consider additional testing they may not normally consider.

 

In the early 1940's, 2,000-5,000 cases of murine typhus were reported annually in the United States, most in the Southeastern and Gulf Coast states. Incidence of the disease declined when rat control programs were instituted after World War II. Currently, murine typhus is not reportable in most states, and only 60-80 cases are reported annually to CDC. In recent years, approximately 80% of these cases have been reported from Texas. In 1981, the most recent year for which information is available, Texas reported 49 cases of murine typhus, with treatment information available for 43.

 

If all my research is correct, that brings us to now, where 2 cases of typhus is docemented in southern/central Texas 2007. The current 2008 “outbreak” involves 13 cases in northern Texas. The "excitement" appears to center around the migration along with unexpected number of cases in one area. “According to Department of State Health Services most of the murine typhus cases occur in South Texas, it can happen in other parts of the state as well.”

 

The cause: "Studies have proven that people are infected with typhus from fleas. Murine typhus is carried by fleas on rodents, opossums and cats. The illness can cause fever, headache, nausea and rash. It's easily treated with antibiotics, and though some forms of untreated typhus can be fatal in up to 60 percent of cases, fatalities for untreated murine typhus are less than 5 percent. Dry weather could be a factor, said Jim Schuermann, staff epidemiologist for vector-borne and zoonotic diseases at the Texas Department of State Health Services. We've been experiencing the third-driest year in 75 or 80 years, and this is forcing the animals — the opossums and wild rodents — out to look for water and food" close to homes, Schuermann said. "This is just a supposition."

 

Tom Kolker, who lives off Manor Road in Central Austin, said he thinks opossums burrowed under the house by his son's room, making his 13-year-old ill. Louis Kolker got sick in March and missed a month in school, Tom Kolker said. "He still doesn't have as much energy as he did before."

 

Secondly, "the CDC field team says they've noticed the large amount of construction in Austin. Homes built in rural areas are pushing humans and animals into closer quarters. Typhus may have been here all along, but it's just now that we're coming in contact.“

 

The prevention: Typhus prevention includes riding your home and pets of fleas, and making sure to wear bug repellant containing deet while outdoors.

 

The symptoms: Typhus symptoms include high fever, severe head ache and muscle pain, and a blotchy, bumpy rash. Typhus is fully treatable using antibiotics. Left untreated, Typhus can be deadly.

 

[Darlene]

bang

[The MacKinnon]

Rest easy, all. I have cornered and trapped the flu virus. Every last little stinkin' microscopic fever inducing, consumption cough causing, nose running wonker is safely trapped in my head and lungs.

 

 

I will have it defeated by uh, uh, 'cuse me. Gotta find a kleenex. And another uh, uh, you know. What you need when you cough. A lot. And hard.