What is epidemic typhus?

What is epidemic typhus?

What is epidemic typhus?

Epidemic typhus, also known as typhus typhus or "typical typhus", may occur after several months to several years after epidemic typhus, known as recurrent typhus, also known as Brill-Zinsser disease. It is an acute infectious disease transmitted by Platts rickettsia through body lice. The clinical features of epidemic typhus are persistent high fever, headache, rash-like rash (or maculopapular rash) and central nervous system symptoms. The natural course is 2 to 3 weeks. Rickettsia was discovered in 1910 by Ricketts in the blood of patients with typhus. In 1913, Prowazekii also found pathogens from patients with neutrophils; both of them were sacrificing typhus. To commemorate them, the pathogen of epidemic typhus was named as Platts.

Clinical manifestations of epidemic typhus

Epidemic typhus can be divided into two types, typical and light, and recurrent typhus.

1. Typical epidemic typhus incubation period is 5 to 21 days, with an average of 10 to 12 days. A small number of patients have prodromal symptoms of 2 to 3 days, such as fatigue, headache, dizziness, chills, and low fever. Most of the onset of illness, accompanied by chills, severe and persistent headache, muscle pain in the body, conjunctiva and facial congestion.