First description of a clinical case of murine typhus in Campeche, Mexico

Abstract

Murine typhus is a flea-borne disease caused by Rickettsia typhi, which was first detected in Mexico in 1927. It was not until 1996 that the first systematized study involving this pathogen was conducted in two coastal states of Mexico. We now report the first confirmed case of murine typhus in the state of Campeche, which occurred in a male patient who exhibited fever, thrombocytopenia, hyperbilirubinemia, and a rash. Furthermore, the patient reported having had previous contact with Rickettsia reservoirs.

Murine Typhus in Latin America: Perspectives of a Once Recognized but Now Neglected Vector-Borne Disease

“…In the last two decades, as documented in the scientific literature, confirmed and suspected autochthonous human cases have been described in Brazil, 69,73 Mexico, [74][75][76][77][78][79][80] Colombia, [81][82][83][84][85] Nicaragua, 86 and Honduras (Figure 1B). 87 In addition, murine typhus was reported in a young Dutch girl after visiting Suriname (her length of visit and time of symptom onset supported infection while traveling).…”

“…In Mexico, in addition to serological results, isolation and molecular characterization of R. typhi have been obtained from clinical samples. [75][76][77][78][79] Research on the current ecoepidemiology of murine typhus in Latin America is scarce. In Colombia, studies conducted from 2010 to 2011 and 2015 to 2017 in Caldas Department (considered an endemic area) investigated for the molecular detection of flea-borne rickettsiae in almost 2,800 fleas collected from cats, dogs, marsupials, and synanthropic and wild rodents.…”