Scrub Typhus and its Co-Infections with Vector Borne Zoonotic Diseases

The emerging cases of Scrub typhus being reported across the globe are constituting a major public health concern to control and reduce the burden of disease among the population. Scrub typhus, a vector-borne zoonotic disease with a mortality of 30%, has now been reported worldwide, affecting billions of people annually. Though the clinical symptoms and signs of Scrub typhus are similar to those of many other viral and bacterial fever illnesses, Scrub typhus falls under the category of Fever of Undifferentiated Febrile Illness (UFI), which provides physicians with a big challenge to exactly detect and diagnose the disease. The invasion of bacterial pathogens into the body is infinite and non-specific, there are cases reported of Scrub typhus co-infected with other vector-borne diseases such as Dengue, Leptospirosis, and Next-generation Sequencing would provide us with high sensitivity and specificity. Ongoing research is crucial in improving our understanding of co-infections and developing effective strategies for their prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Addressing the challenges, timely diagnosis and treatment of co-infected cases requires a multidisciplinary approach involving clinicians, microbiologists, epidemiologists, and public health experts under one umbrella.

Keywords: AES (Acute encephalitis syndrome), Co-infections, Inflammatory cytokines, Interleukins, One Health approach, Orientia tsutsugamushi, Scrub typhus, Undifferentiated febrile illness.