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The Ticks of Rodents and their Nests, and the Discovery that Rhipicephalus sanguineus Latr. is the Vector of Tropical Typhus in Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

J. Isgaer Roberts
J. Isgaer Roberts
Affiliation:
From the Medical Research Laboratory, Nairobi.
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1. Earlier attempts to trace the vector of tropical typhus in Kenya failed. The only references to the subject in the available literature consist of mere suggestions that a mite would most likely prove to be the transmitter.

2. An investigation made in an area whence most Nairobi cases of tropical typhus were reported, suggested that a tick (R. pulchellus) would be the most likely vector.

3. Transmission experiments made in the belief that one of the unclassed fevers of man was conveyed by R. pulchellus have so far yielded negative results. There is, however, sufficient circumstantial evidence available pointing to this tick as vector of a form of mild typhus to man—this demands further investigation.

4. At Mombasa and Nairobi, houses reported to be heavily infested with ticks, or houses investigated after the occurrence of the tropical typhus in them, have yielded only R. sanguineus.

5. R. sanguineus (3 ♀), taken from a dog in a house where the last typhus case had occurred 8 months previously, gave a typical typhus syndrome when emulsified and inoculated into a male guinea-pig. R. sanguineus (1 ♀, 12 ⊙), taken in a house where a child had recently contracted typhus, also gave a positive result with guinea-pigs and the virus was further transmitted by passage through other guinea-pigs.

6. The infestation of houses by R. sanguineus and the incidence of tropical typhus among human beings appear to be influenced by unfavourable weather conditions, causing the ticks to seek relatively dry and warm places for purposes of oviposition or metamorphosis, thus invading houses. In the absence of dogs, its usual hosts, the tick attacks man.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 1935 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1935

References

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