Challenges in diagnosing scrub typhus among hospitalized patients with undifferentiated fever at a national tertiary hospital in northern Vietnam.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Scrub typhus (ST) is a leading cause of non-malarial febrile illness in Southeast Asia, but evidence of its true disease burden is limited because of difficulties of making the clinical diagnosis and lack of adequate diagnostic tests. To describe the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of ST, we conducted an observational study using multiple diagnostic assays at a national tertiary hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Methodology/principal findings

We enrolled 1,127 patients hospitalized with documented fever between June 2012 and May 2013. Overall, 33 (2.9%) patients were diagnosed with ST by PCR and/or screening of ELISA for immunoglobulin M (IgM) with confirmatory tests: 14 (42.4%) were confirmed by indirect immunoperoxidase assay (IIP), and 19 (57.6%) were by II

SUBMITTER: Katoh S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6917290 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature