58 in eastern China sickened with scrub typhus

CHINA: Some 58 people in eastern China have been sickened with scrub typhus after being bitten by mites, health officials said Friday.

The Anhui province health department said in a statement posted on its Web site that most of the sick had been treated in hospitals and discharged.

Medical facilities were on alert for more infections because they usually peaked between September and December, it said. All of the cases occurred this month in Anhui province, including 47 in Fuyang, eight in Bengbu and three in Bozhou.

Scrub typhus is caused by bites from the Rickettsia tsutsugamushi mite. Symptoms include acute fever, severe headaches and a rash. It can be treated with the antibiotic tetracycline or its derivatives.

The disease, which occurs mostly in low-lying rural areas of Asia and Australia, usually infects people visiting or working in mite-infested areas in scrub, overgrown terrain or forest clearings.

BEIJING, Friday, AP