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A One Health Perspective on the Resurgence of Flea-Borne Typhus in Texas in the 21st Century. Part 1. The Bacteria, The Cat Flea, Urbanization, and Climate Change

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Submitted:

20 November 2024

Posted:

21 November 2024

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Abstract
Flea-borne typhus (FBT), due to Rickettsia typhi and R. felis, is an infection typically causing fever, headache, rash, hepatitis, and thrombocytopenia. About one-quarter of patients suffer pulmonary, neurologic, hematologic, renal, hepatic, cardiac, ocular or other complications. In the 21st century, the incidence of FBT has increased in both Texas and California compared to the 1990s. In this paper, county-level epidemiological data for the number of cases of FBT occurring in Texas for two decades, 1990-1999 and 2010-2019, were compared with respect to county of residence, urbanization, and climatic region. Human population growth in Texas has promoted FBT by increased urbanization and abundance of pet dogs and cats, stray/feral dogs and cats, and opossums. Increasing temperatures in Texas in the new millennium has increased the flea-borne transmission of FBT by promoting host infestation and flea feeding and defecation, accelerating the flea life cycle, and increasing rickettsial replication within the flea. Increased opossums and stray cats and dogs in the urban/suburban landscape has increased the risk of flea transfer to humans and their pets.
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Subject: Medicine and Pharmacology  -   Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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