Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever has often been associated with ticks found in heavily wooded rural areas carried by dogs and rodents. Recently, the CDC and Indian Health Service officials from Arizona and New Mexico has reported a cluster of cases during 2002 - 2004 in rural eastern Arizona.
Scientists are now reporting that a very common type of dog tick can spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever. This is a tick that can live every where in the world!
Rocky Mountain spotted fever was first identified a century ago in Idaho. Since then it has spread through much of the United States, on particular the south-Atlantic states — Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Oklahoma and North Carolina.
The disease is caused by bacteria that infect ticks that can bite and infect animals and people.
Symptoms: Fever, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, lack of appetite and severe headache. These symptoms can show up 5 to 10 days after being bitten by the infected tick and are commonly passed off as viral ailments. Late symptoms include a spotted rash, abdominal pain, joint pain and diarrhea.
Treatment: Antibiotics, particularly doxycycline, are effective in the early stages. Fatality rates are reported as high as 20% when cases go unrecognized.
The disease in rising rapidly in this country. The CDC reported 365 cases in 1998 and last year the number rose to 1,514. How many more have not been reported?
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