CA - Downtown Los Angeles hit with outbreak of flea-borne typhus, October 2018

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Downtown Los Angeles hit with outbreak of flea-borne typhus

LOS ANGELES — An outbreak of flea-borne typhus has hit downtown Los Angeles, the county Department of Public Health said Thursday. Health officials say they are investigating several cases of the disease that infected fleas can spread to humans, CBS Los Angeles reports.

While the fleas can come from cats, rats and opossums, pets and animals do not get sick from typhus.

In people, however, typhus can cause high fever, chills, headache and rash. It is not transmitted from person to person and can be treated with antibiotics.

"Although typhus normally occurs throughout L.A. County, we are observing several cases in the downtown Los Angeles area," Los Angeles County Health Officer Muntu Davis said in a statement. "We encourage pet owners to practice safe flea control and encourage all cities in the county to ensure maintenance of their trash clean-up and rodent control activities."​

 

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Oh Fleas, Now There Is A Typhus Outbreak In Los Angeles

Fleas bite and aren't potty trained. That's why there's now an outbreak of typhus in downtown Los Angeles, as announced by the Los Angeles Department of Health.

Here's a CBS Los Angeles news segment on the outbreak:

Now here's the poop. You can get typhus when a flea carrying the bacteria bites you or infectious flea poop gets rubbed into breaks in your skin or mucous membranes like your eyes. Fleas typically don't use tiny little toilets when they go Number 2. They can just "bust a grumpy" right on your skin. As if that weren't rude enough, they can bite you at the same time so that the poop gets rubbed into your wound, allowing whatever bacteria is in their poop to access your bloodstream. Biting you and pooping on you are not the marks of good guests, in most cases.
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Typhus fever outbreak in LA prompts the question: What is it?

Murine typhus is carried in infected fleas, which, as the name suggests, usually infect rats or mice. However, these infected fleas can also get onto cats, dogs, and even opossums.
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The primary symptom of typhus is fever, which often begins a week or two after exposure. Headaches and rash are also very common, and they typically begin on the body, spreading to the arms and legs, but sparing the palms and soles.

People can also experience a lot of other general symptoms, including fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal pain, and even confusion. These symptoms aren’t necessarily specific to typhus, and that can make it difficult for doctors to nail the diagnosis.

Anyone with these symptoms who has been around animals that might contain fleas (including rats or mice) should assume they’ve caught the disease at first so as to not miss any diagnoses.

While patients might have to wait for blood test results to confirm the diagnosis, doctors will still treat the patients immediately with antibiotics, because a delay in treatment can lead to more serious problems.


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