Texas officials issue alert about typhus threat

Texas officials are urging healthcare providers to be on the lookout for typhus in patients. Above, Dr. Lucas Blanton with the University of Texas Medical Branch is studying typhus cases in Galveston County over the past several years. The disease is increasing in Houston and other parts of Texas, but is not always recognized by providers, according to an alert issued by the Texas health department Thursday. less Texas officials are urging healthcare providers to be on the lookout for typhus in patients. Above, Dr. Lucas Blanton with the University of Texas Medical Branch is studying typhus cases in Galveston County ... more Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Texas officials issue alert about typhus threat 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Texas officials have issued a health alert about the rising threat of typhus in Houston and other parts of the state.

The alert by the Texas Department of State Health Services calls on healthcare providers to increase their "clinical suspicion" for typhus symptoms, including fever, headache, muscle pain, anorexia, rash, nausea and vomiting. Such symptoms are often confused with many viral ailments.

The Chronicle reported on the increase in typhus earlier this year. The number of cases jumped from 30 in 2003 to 364 in 2016, 32 of them in Harris County, health officials said.

The new alert says the state expects the final 2017 typhus count will exceed 400.

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It noted that in previous years, typhus was primarily reported in South Texas, along the Gulf Coast, and Central Texas, but activity is more recently increasing in the Houston and Dallas-Fort areas. Typhus can occur in any age group, the alert said, but more than a quarter of cases reported involve children between 6 to 15 years of age.

Typhus, a potentially fatal disease transmitted by fleas, was thought to be all but eradicated in most of the United States but has been making a comeback in Texas for reasons researchers don't know. The bacteria is carried most abundantly by opossums and other backyard mammals that spread them to cats and dogs.

"We can now add typhus to the growing list of tropical infections striking Texas," Dr. Peter Hotez, founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor and Texas Children's Hospital told the Chronicle earlier this year. "Chagas, dengue fever, Zika, chikungunya and now typhus - tropical diseases have become the new normal in south and southeast Texas."

Since 2003, eight deaths have been attributed to flea-borne typhus infection in Texas, and more than 60 percent of patients diagnosed with the bacteria are hospitalized. When left untreated, severe illness can cause damage to one or more organs, including the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs and brain.

Flea-borne typhus cases are required to be reported to the local health department within one week.

You can read the alert here. It was issued Thursday.