A deadly infection under the microscope

Peering into a 8216;phase contrast8217; microscope is Dr Reena Tilak, a scientist at the entomology division of the Armed Forces Medical College...

Peering into a 8216;phase contrast8217; microscope is Dr Reena Tilak, a scientist at the entomology division of the Armed Forces Medical College AFMC. She is patiently picking on each hair of a mite that has been magnified to resemble a deadly insect. Deadly, yes, as this insect has had the armed forces worried about the emergence of 8216;scrub typhus8217;, a disease that is known to have changed the course of a World War.

To be designated by the Indian Council of Medical Research ICMR as the nodal 8216;rickettsial disease centre for the country8217;, Tilak and her team at the AFMC have been painstakingly poring over thousands of specimens that are being collected from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for evidence of 8216;scrub typhus8217;.

Rickettsial infections are caused by an unusual type of parasitical bacteria. Most of these infections are spread through ticks, mites, fleas or lice and the symptoms are fever, severe headache and rashes develop after being bitten by the mite. But since the symptoms are very common to diseases like malaria, scrub typhus has not been diagnosed, says Col R Bhalwar, Head of the Department of Community Medicine, AFMC. He explains that antibiotics are given as soon as the doctors suspect an infection and the patient recovers. Scrub typhus is prevalent in the north and north western parts of the country and is transmitted by the bite of the larval trombiculid mite.

Scrub typhus fever was first documented by an Indian army survey and in 1945, a field typhus team was raised under the South East Asia Command. According to Tilak, troops were known to retreat as the infection was usually fatal. Records point out there was a high mortality rate due to scrub typhus in WWII in the China-Burma-India theatre of operations.

While no there are typhus cases at present, the Armed Forces Medical Services has raised concern over its re-emergence, especially as troops move around in areas of heavy and low lying scrub vegetation. Contact with this mite can cause immense irritation.

The symptoms are either overlooked or misdiagnosed, says Tilak, who, for the past year, has been mapping mites across north India.

8220;If this disease is not detected early, it can lead to multi organ failure,8221; says Tilak, who has trained public health doctors posted at the Station Health Organisations in the North.

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Col Bhalwar has even urged the doctors to send them the patient8217;s blood samples for investigation apart from the thousands of infected mites that are under microscopic examination at AFMC.