IAS Gyan

Daily News Analysis

5 killed in Nagaland scrub typhus outbreak

29th September, 2020 Health

Context: More than 600 have tested positive for the disease spread through bites of larval mites.

About: An outbreak of scrub typhus, a bacterial disease, has claimed the lives of five people in Nagaland’s Noklak district bordering Myanmar.

  • Scrub typhus, also known as bush typhus, spreads to people through bites of larval mites. The symptoms include fever, headache and body ache.
  • “People recover if treated in time.

Other fatalities

  • Scrub typhus and COVID-19 has been the latest in a string of viral and bacterial fatalities in the Northeast.
  • Animal disease: While more than 17,000 pigs have died in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya due to the African swine fever, milk yield has suffered after the viral lumpy skin disease in cattle in Assam.
  • Crop disease: Pest attacks. Five types of beetles have damaged standing crops on large swathes across the Siang River belt in Arunachal Pradesh. Fall armyworms, inchworms and a strange species of grasshoppers affected paddy and maize crops in other parts of the Northeast.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/5-killed-in-nagaland-scrub-typhus-outbreak/article32647398.ece