The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning about the tick-borne disease after several cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever were reported in Southern California. Five people who had been in the Mexican border city in recent months have been hospitalized since July. washington post Four of them were under the age of 18, and three of them died, according to the report. “This disease is very unfortunate because half of patients die within the first eight days of illness,” said Christopher Paddock, chief medical officer at the CDC. If detected early, it can be treated.
But health officials say the disease is often not diagnosed in time because early symptoms, such as a low-grade fever, headache and gastrointestinal discomfort, are often not serious or unusual. It is spread by infected ticks. CNN. Another problem is CDC“Many patients do not remember being bitten by a tick,'' the health warning says. The agency is advising health care providers to consider treating people who have recently traveled to northern Mexico and are showing symptoms with the antibiotic doxycycline, without waiting for test results.
Rocky Mountain spotted fever is not normally a major problem in the United States, but it is now endemic in parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It is not contagious from person to person, but it can be transmitted by brown dog ticks in the area, according to CNN. All five patients had been in Tecate, a city in northern Mexico's Baja California state, within two weeks of becoming ill. Mexico's fatality rate can exceed 40%, while the U.S. fatality rate is much lower, according to the CDC. (Read more stories about Rocky Mountain spotted fever.)
