[ad_1]
A man hospitalized for dehydration a few months ago at USC Los Angeles County Medical Center began to suffer from a high fever and doctors did not know why.
The patient was homeless, a clue to the doctors that he might have typhus. Each year, people contract typhus fleas in Southern California, mainly in Los Angeles County. The doctors did a blood test.
"We sent it, and that's it – typhus," said Dr. Brad Spellberg, chief county doctor-USC.
Since July, there have been nine cases of typhus in downtown Los Angeles, six of which have infected homeless people, prompting health authorities to declare an epidemic in the region. There have also been 20 cases in Pasadena this year, far more than the five cases typically encountered each year.
Epidemics of typhus are often associated with poor hygiene and overcrowding. Officials in Los Angeles say they are attacking stray animals that could carry fleas, clean the streets and encourage people to treat their pets against fleas and tidy up litter that could stink. attract infected animals.
The epidemic has also fueled debates on homelessness and housing. The Mayor of the Republic, Eric Garcetti, announced this week a contribution of $ 300,000 to help clean the streets of downtown. But many fear that this is not enough to curb the growing number of cases and empty garbage that has accumulated with the spread of homeless population in the city.
"Sidewalks were never intended for habitation, our stormlines were never intended for human waste, and rats were crawling everywhere," said Estela Lopez, chief executive officer of the district. Improvement of industrial enterprises in downtown Los Angeles. "It's unimaginable that in such an advanced society we are facing this problem."
More and more people are suffering from typhus in Los Angeles County over the past decade, although experts do not know why. The increase in homelessness is one of the main theories, which also include warmer temperatures and people spending more time outdoors.
There were five cases of typhus in 2008, up from 79 cases this year, according to the California Department of Public Health.
Typhus spreads when fleas are infected with a bacterium called Rickettsia typhi or Rickettsia felis. The disease affects humans when fleas bite them or when infected flea droppings are rubbed on cuts or scrapes of skin, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"It's very hard to say – these microbes have their own minds – they come when they want, and they seem to go away when they want to," Spellberg said. "I do not think anyone really knows it."
Typhus is distinguished from typhoid fever, a food-borne illness that is rarely contracted in the United States and can be transmitted from one person to another. Typhus, on the other hand, can not be transmitted between people.
Typhus causes fever, body aches, abdominal pain and rashes. Most people recover on their own, but more severe cases can cause heart, brain and lung damage without treatment. The infection can cause death in rare cases.
Alex Comisar, a spokesman for Garcetti, said the city and county had formed a task force to fight the epidemic and intensified their cleanup efforts by using additional funds.
"We are deploying all available resources to help control and stop this epidemic," said Comisar.
Next week, municipal workers will begin picking up trash and cleaning up the inside of the "Typhoon Zone", an area of the downtown area bounded by 3rd, 7th, Spring and Alameda streets.
Already, workers are cleaning up some of the area's streets encompassing parts of the skid line as part of a program called Operation Healthy Streets. They are cleared of debris, washed and sprayed with a liquid containing bleach every two weeks.
But the new effort will expand the 100-acre clean-up area to 279, according to a map provided by Comisar. The new funding will last nine months.
Enrique Zaldivar, director of the city 's sanitation department, said the new effort will allow for collaboration with private companies that could help stem the epidemic in a way that does not help. would not have been possible before.
"There may be a private building that is not used, and it's a perfect place for rodents to nest, and it's totally out of reach of our cleaning operations," he said. he declared.
But many expressed anger that the cleaning area would not extend south of 7th Street. Rena Leddy, executive director of LA Fashion District Business Improvement District, said that heaps of garbage accumulated south of the typhus zone, from 8th Street to the edge of her neighborhood, near from 18th street.
On Thursday, several tents lined an alley just south of 7th Street, surrounded by crates and garbage. The pigeons pecked at the food on the sidewalk. At the corner of 8th Street and the Central Avenue, also outside the typhus zone, a large pile of garbage had accumulated against a brick wall.
"There are other parts of the downtown area that also have massive amounts of garbage piled up." That's what we were told everyone, that's to pick up the rats that then propagate the fleas, "said Leddy.
But officials say that although rats, cats and opossums can all carry fleas, different epidemics have different causes.
The slight rise in cases at Pasadena this year is probably related to opossums and cats – not to rats, said Levy Sun, chief of information for the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vessel Control District.
"Rats are a kind of red herring here," Sun said.
Sun said that tests on rats in the area showed that they did not carry a lot of fleas.
In the last typhus outbreak in Los Angeles County in 2015, a single opossum captured in a mobile home park in Pomona contained 1,087 fleas. Three-fifths of the fleas tested in cats and trapped opossums were positive for typhus.
Health officials were able to control the outbreak, starting with flea control, trapping wild animals in the area, offering free typhus tests and monitoring flea populations. People who lived in the mobile home community had to clean the feeding grounds and limit the number of animals to one, rule dictated by the owner and not followed.
One person had 32 pets, according to a scientific article published on the response to the outbreak.
Sun encouraged people to clean debris and buckets in their yard and to ensure that their pets are treated for fleas. The solution, he said, is not to "shake up typhus and wildlife in our environment, but to shake our habits".
Of the 945 cases of typhus reported in California since 2001, 726 have occurred in Los Angeles County – and these numbers are only increasing.
"We think of typhus for a long time," said Spellberg.
Explore further:
Flea typhus outbreak in Los Angeles County
Source link
