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Scrub typhus toll reaches two in Kerala as 39-year-old dies
Amid cases of scrub typhus, Kerala health experts further asked people who rear domestic animals to take precautions and restrict interaction with them during the rainy season
A 39-year-old woman died of scrub typhus, a disease triggered by mite-borne bacteria, on Sunday, taking the death toll to two, health officials said.
According to officials, Sabitha, a native of the Parasala area in Thiruvananthapuram, undergoing treatment for the disease for the last 15 days, succumbed to her ailments on Sunday.
Last week, a 15-year-old girl from Varkala in Thiruvananthapuramalso died of the disease, which experts suspect is transmitted mainly through reared dogs, besides rats, squirrels, cats and rabbits. Both victims had dogs at their houses, health officials said.
State health minister Veena George asked an expert team to visit the area and take measures to contain the disease. “We are monitoring the situation. Experts will visit the affected areas,” she said.
Experts said scrub typhus is an infectious disease caused by a mite-borne bacterium. Chigger mites, the larval stage of mites, spread the disease to animals, and human beings get transmitted from them.
The experts further asked people who rear domestic animals to take precautions and restrict interaction with them during the rainy season. The common symptoms of the disease are fever, body ache and red rashes. If detected early, it is a treatable malady. But its diagnosis is difficult, experts said.
Usually, during the monsoon season, dengue and leptospirosis cases spike in the state but scrub typhus casualties were reported after a long gap.
Since disease outbreaks through water and food are becoming frequent these days, the state health department launched a state-wide campaign last week to encourage people to pay more attention to hygiene and observe dry days.
The southwest monsoon arrived in Kerala three days before its usual date (May 28). However, its progression turned weak in the southern state, the first point of call in the peninsula, regional met department statistics show.
According to the regional met office in the state capital, rain deficiency is more than 57 per cent in the state now. But it said in the coming day’s deficiency will be cleared.
Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) director Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said, over the years, there is a negative trend in rainfall during core months of monsoon in the state.
While June and July get an average of 65 cm rainfall, it increases in August and September, compensating for the deficiency.
He was addressing a virtual session on monsoon organised by the Kerala state disaster management authority on Saturday. He said the shortfall was mostly in coastal regions and plains and not much in Western Ghats regions.
Weather experts said the rain pattern in the state is undergoing drastic changes in the last few years, and rainfall was getting stronger towards the end of the monsoon season, August-September.
In 2018, the state had witnessed the flood of the century, which claimed at least 480 lives. This year, the state received unusual pre-monsoon rains – 94 per cent excess rainfall from March 1 to May 18 – the average fall was 235 mm, but it crossed 460 mm between March and May 18.
