Woman dies, twenty test positive for scrub typhus

NAGPUR: Satranjipura resident Afsan Majid Sheikh (35) has become the first case of death from scrub typhus in the Nagpur division comprising six districts under the deputy director of health services this year.
Meanwhile, four fresh cases of the zoonotic disease, which spreads with the onset of the monsoon, have been reported from posh localities by private hospitals in the city in August while 16 tested positive for the mite-borne illness in Wardha district last week.
The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has recorded 23 scrub typhus cases since January. Last year, 47 had tested positive at private hospitals, Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) and Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMCH). Although a higher number of patients had shown the symptoms last year, 18 had died out of the 47 affected following the outbreak of monsoon last year.
Sheikh passed away on August 19, two days after she was taken to two private hospitals and finally referred to GMCH where she succumbed to the disease. As per NMC’s Malaria and Filarial department, Sheikh suffered from fever after returning from Gondia on August 15.
Civic and health officials said they have been closely monitoring the situation in their respective jurisdictions though it is a non-contagious disease and can be easily treated with timely administration of doxycycline or azythromcyin. They say most of these cases were detected through the rapid test kit like last year when the figure touched 55 and eventually came down to 47.
NMC’s malaria and filarial officer Jayashree Thote said Sheikh’s death needs to be confirmed through the more reliant ELISA test while the reported patients have taken the rapid test. She said preventive measures of dusting malathion powder is being done near patients’ homes.
Thote said the four new scrub typhus patients are from Sadar, Manish Nagar, Samarth Nagar and Seminary Hills. They include two men and two women. One of them had gone to Pune after which he contracted the infection, Thote said, adding, the cause of the rest is yet to be attributed.
Assistant director of health (Malaria) Milind Ganvir, too, said that the cases reported from Wardha were tested through a rapid test. He suggested that the 16 Wardha cases were not a single episode but collectively tested on September 12 while the report was submitted the next day.
Wardha District health officer Ajay Dhawale said not all the 16 patients undergoing treatment at Sevagram’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS) were from the single district but came from different places. “No one is critical as of now,” he said.
Following a spurt in the animal to human infection, the deputy director of health services has issued an advisory across Nagpur, Wardha, Gondia, Bhandara, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts asking people to avoid direct contact with weeds and shrubs, controlling the rodent population and even taking care of domestic animals.