Naval Medical Research Unit Five worked there with the government on research to attempt to eradicate the disease.In one of its first major outbreaks since World War II, epidemic typhus reemerged in 1995 in a jail in NGozi, Burundi. This outbreak followed the start of the Burundian Civil War in 1993, which caused the displacement of 760,000 people. Refugee camps were crowded and unsanitary, and often far from towns and medical services. 21st century
A 2005 study found seroprevalence of R. prowazekii antibodies in homeless populations in two shelters in Marseille, France. The study noted the "hallmarks of epidemic typhus and relapsing fever". History of vaccines
Major developments for typhus vaccines started during World War I, as typhus caused high mortality, and threatened the health and readiness for soldiers on the battlefield. Vaccines for typhus, like other vaccines of the time, were classified as either living or killed vaccines. Live vaccines were typically an injection of live agent, and killed vaccines are live cultures of an agent that are chemically inactivated prior to use.Attempts to create a living vaccine of classical, louse-borne, typhus were attempted by French researchers but these proved unsuccessful. Researchers turned to murine typhus to develop a live vaccine. At the time, murine vaccine was viewed as a less severe alternative to classical typhus. Four versions of a live vaccine cultivated from murine typhus were tested, on a large scale, in 1934.While the French were making advancements with live vaccines, other European countries were working to develop killed vaccines.
Tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and doxycycline are commonly used. Infection can also be prevented by vaccination.Some of the simplest methods of prevention and treatment focus on preventing infestation of body lice. Completely changing the clothing, washing the infested clothing in hot water, and in some cases also treating recently used bedsheets all help to prevent typhus by removing potentially infected lice. Clothes left unworn and unwashed for 7 days also result in the death of both lice and their eggs, as they have no access to a human host. Another form of lice prevention requires dusting infested clothing with a powder consisting of 10% DDT, 1% malathion, or 1% permethrin, which kill lice and their eggs.Other preventive measures for individuals are to avoid unhygienic, extremely overcrowded areas where the causative organisms can jump from person to person. In addition, they are warned to keep a distance from larger rodents that carry lice, such as rats, squirrels, or opossums. History
History of outbreaks
Before 19th century
During the second year of the Peloponnesian War (430 BC), the city-state of Athens in ancient Greece had an epidemic, known as the Plague of Athens, which killed, among others, Pericles and his two elder sons. The plague returned twice more, in 429 BC and in the winter of 427/6 BC. Epidemic typhus is proposed as a strong candidate for the cause of this disease outbreak, supported by both medical and scholarly opinions. The first description of typhus was probably given in 1083 at La Cava abbey near Salerno, Italy.