Chitwan, July 24

As many as 13 people have been found infected with scrub typhus over the past one week in Chitwan district. The patients are among the 54 people who had their blood tested in different health facilities of the district.

According to District Public Health Office, Chitwan, eight people tested positive for scrub typhus at Bharatpur Hospital, four at Narayani Community Hospital and one at Bakulahar Hospital of the district.

Ram Kumar KC, kit control inspector at the office, said a total of 22 people were found to have contracted the disease since mid-April. According to him, the virus was detected only in two people while examining blood samples of 50 people from mid-April to mid-May, but the number reached five while testing blood samples of 137 people from mid-May to mid-June. The number climbed to 13 between mid-June and mid-July while examining blood samples of 54 people, KC added.

A total of 509 people had tested positive for scrub typhus while examining blood samples of 765 persons in the last fiscal. Of them, four people succumbed to the disease last year while one patient died this fiscal in the district.

The disease is transmitted when a mite or bug found in the ear of mice bites people. An insect called Orientia tsutsugamushi transmits the disease from one person to another. People usually get bitten by the insect while they are working in the field.

With the soaring number of typhus patients in the district, the health facilities here have been facing a shortage of kits, of late. “We have only nine kits left now. Hence, we have asked the Department of Health to supply more kits at the earliest,” said Bijay Kumar Jha, chief of the office.