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KMID : 1143420160090400790
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Public Health Weekly Report
2016 Volume.9 No. 40 p.790 ~ p.795
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Serological Study of Scrub Typhus Among National Forest Field Workers
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Gill Byoung-Chul
Lee Jeong-Min
Lee Yeong-Seon
Lim Hyun-Sul
Park Ji-Hyuk
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Scrub typhus is a mite-borne disease caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi. It occurs frequently during autumn in South Korea and the incidence of the disease increases with climate change and outdoor activities. Since the first case reported in the 1950s in Korea, the incidence rate of this disease has increased steadily; 5,000?6,000 cases were reported from 2005 to 2011 and 9,513 cases were reported in 2015. This serological study was conducted to obtain baseline data of scrub typhus for a high risk population.
METHODOLOGY/RESULTS: This study included national forest field workers (Yeongrim-dan) who were considered as high risk population for scrub typhus. The eligible participants were 715 (43.9%) out of 1,629 forestry workers. Collected sera were tested for antibodies specific to O. tsutsugamushi causing scrub typhus using the indirect immunofluorescence antibody assay (IFA). Titers of IgG ≥ 1:256 or IgM ≥ 1:16 were considered as single cut-off values for seropositivity. In this study, the seropositivity was 5.7% (41/715). The seroreactivity with IgG ≥ 1:16 or IgM ≥ 1:16 was 11.9% (85/715). The gene for the 56-kDa type-specific antigen (TSA56) of O. tsutsugamushi was not detected in any seropositive cases. We found that only 1 out of 41 seropositive cases was confirmed as a patient infected with O. tsutsugamushi by clinical diagnosis. The regional differences in seropositivity and seroreactivity were also observed.
CONCLUSION: This is the first serological study on scrub typhus among field workers of national forest. Further analyses of this population for other vector-borne diseases would be needed to identify the risk factors and to improve the control and prevention of these diseases among high risk population. Additional studies should be considered for the investigation of the relationship between population density or infection rate of vectors and seroprevalence of scrub typhus.
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KEYWORD
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