Vaccine
No licensed vaccines are available.An early attempt to create a scrub typhus vaccine occurred in the United Kingdom in 1937 (with the Wellcome Foundation infecting around 300,000 cotton rats  in a classified project called "Operation Tyburn"), but the vaccine was not used. The first known batch of scrub typhus vaccine actually used to inoculate human subjects was dispatched to India for use by Allied Land Forces, South-East Asia Command in June 1945. By December 1945, 268,000 cc had been dispatched. The vaccine was produced at Wellcomes laboratory at Ely Grange, Frant, Sussex. An attempt to verify the efficacy of the vaccine by using a placebo group for comparison was vetoed by the military commanders, who objected to the experiment.Enormous antigenic variation in Orientia tsutsugamushi strains is now recognized, and immunity to one strain does not confer immunity to another. Any scrub typhus vaccine should give protection to all the strains present locally, to give an acceptable level of protection. A vaccine developed for one locality may not be protective in another, because of antigenic variation. This complexity continues to hamper efforts to produce a viable vaccine.Dora Lush, an Australian bacterioloigist, died after accidentally pricking her finger with a needle containing scrub typhus while inoculating a mouse in an attempt to develop a vaccine. History
Severe epidemics of the disease occurred among troops in Burma and Ceylon during World War II.
Where the Allies had bases, they could remove and cut back vegetation, or use DDT as a prophylaxis area barrier treatment, so mite- and tick-induced sickness rates in forces off the front lines were diminished.The disease was also a problem for US troops stationed in Japan after WWII, and was variously known as "Shichitō fever" (by troops stationed in the Izu Seven Islands) or "Hatsuka fever" (Chiba prefecture).Scrub typhus was first reported in Chile in 2006. This is likely the result of underdiagnosis and underreporting and not of a recent spread to Chile. In January 2020 the disease was for the first time reported in Chiles southernmost region. See also
List of mites associated with cutaneous reactions

References


== External links ==