Via Thanh Nien Daily: Fatal skin disease remains mystery after discovery of flea-carried bacterium. I'm going to have to put this back in the "undiagnosed outbreaks" category. Excerpt:
A flea-carried bacterium has been found in blood samples taken from the patients of the skin condition that has killed 19 in central Vietnam over the past year, but local experts say it did not cause the disease.
A report on the VnExpress newswire Thursday quoted Dr. Nguyen Van Binh, chief of the Department of Preventive Health, as saying that the discovery of Ricketsia bacteria in the samples of patients “was just initial information for experts to make a reference, because it was not the cause, just one of the factors leading to the disease.”
Earlier, on Tuesday, a delegation of experts from the Ministry of Health announced that 14 out of 26 blood samples of patients in the central province of Quang Ngai’s Ba To District tested positive with Ricketsia, which causes scrub typhus fever and is often found in fleas, lice, mites, and ticks.
According to Binh, experts are still learning about the skin condition that creates ulcers on hands and feet that look like severe burns and induce stiffness in the limbs. In critical cases, it can lead to liver and lung failure.
Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien will also make a trip to the affected areas and meet with Quang Ngai’s authorities to discuss measures for curbing the disease, the news website reported.
In the meantime, Nguyen Xuan Men, deputy director of the provincial Department of Health, proposed that the health ministry issues a new treatment protocol for the disease as the current one has proved ineffective.
Since the disease broke out last April in the province's Ba To District, 176 people in the district as well as the nearby Minh Long District have been affected, Men said, adding that 73 percent of them are farmers while 20 percent are students.
He said the disease recurred in 60 percent of the patients after treatment, and more patients were reported during the rainy season than the dry season.
