Typhus Prevention Methods

Avoid Animals Known To Carry Typhus

One of the easiest ways to prevent typhus is to avoid animals known to carry typhus. Carriers of the bacteria include lice, fleas, ticks, mites, rats, opossums, and other small mammals. Some of them become carriers from feeding on the blood of infected people or rodents. Epidemic typhus can be found in the United States and many other countries, and it's spread by infected body lice, flying squirrels, or possibly by ticks. This kind of typhus is rare and usually occurs in very crowded living conditions with poor sanitation. Cat fleas or rat fleas carry murine or endemic typhus. This type is found worldwide, and although it's not common in the United States, cases have been reported in Texas, Hawaii, and Southern California. Scrub typhus, also known as tsutsugamushi disease, is carried by chiggers, which are mites in their larval stage. This form of typhus can be found in Southeast Asia, northern Australia, Japan, China, India, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands.

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