PEDIATRICS Vol. 22 No. 2 August 1958, pp. 384-387
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RICKETTSIAL DISEASES OF ANIMALS TRANSMISSIBLE TO CHILDREN

Lauri Luoto D.V.M., M.P.H.1

1 U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Rocky Mountain Laboratory, Hamilton, Montana

BECAUSE rickettsial infections occur sporadically, pediatricians may not be as thoroughly familiar with them as they are with common diseases of children that are characterized by rash. Hence, the rickettsias are infrequently considered in the etiology of febrile exanthemas or fevers of undertermined origin. Rickettsial diseases of primary interest in this country are Rocky Mountain spotted fever, murine typhus, rickcttsialpox and Q fever. The agents causing these diseases exist as latent infections in arthropods and animals, and they are transmitted accidentally to man through well-defined channels of spread. An awareness of the epizootiology of rickettsial diseases in nature and of the means by which these agents are transmitted to man is helpful in establishing a diagnosis of a rickettsial disease. Therefore, salient features of the natural cycles of infection which may suggest a clinical diagnosis will be stressed, and characteristics of these diseases in children will be reviewed briefly.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is usually contracted during the spring or summer through the bite of an infected tick although infection also may be acquired by dermal contact with tissues of a crushed or improperly removed tick. The wood tick, Dermacentor andersoni, the dog tick, D. variabilis, and the lone-star tick, Amblyomma americanum, which are found, respectively, in the western, eastern, and southern United States are responsible for transmitting the organism to man. Natural infection with Rickettsia rickettsii in these species is maintained by transovarial passage of the agent and by the feeding of immature stages on infected small mammals. Environmental factors such as rainfall, temperature, food supply of small mammals, and prevalence of predators indirectly affect the abundance of ticks.


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 Arch Pediatr Adolesc MedHome page
T. Rubio, H. D. Riley Jr., J. R. Nida, F. Brooksaler, and J. D. Nelson
Thrombocytopenia in Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med, July 1, 1968; 116(1): 88 - 96.
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