Plant insect mite dermatitis may become chronic or recur on indoor or outdoor mite reexposure on the heads, limbs, and trunks of backpackers, campers, and resort vacationers during peak mite-feeding and breeding seasons in the spring and summer. Only biting larvae of Asian scrub typhus chiggers (Leptotrombidium species) transmit scrub typhus caused by O tsutsugamushi (formerly Rickettsia tsutsugamushi),

and only biting house-mouse mites (Liponyssoides sanguineus) transmit rickettsialpox selleck chemicals caused by R akari. Although these two mite-transmitted infectious diseases do share mites as vectors, their preferred mite vectors, disease ecologies, and clinical presentations are different, when compared with Table 3. Although initially classified in the genus Rickettsia, O tsutsugamushi was reclassified into a separate genus based on molecular

evidence that its cell wall ultrastructure differed significantly from Rickettsia species. 25 Both scrub typhus and rickettsialpox respond to treatment with oral tetracycline, oral doxycycline, or intravenous chloramphenicol, which is not recommended due to its bone marrow toxicity. 25 Both scrub typhus mites and house-mouse mites are, like ticks, capable of inheriting bacterial infections by transovarial transmission Cisplatin and maintaining infections in several mite generations, because bacteria are passed from adults to juveniles (nymphs and larvae) by transstadial transmission. 25 Scrub typhus chiggers are the main environmental reservoirs of O tsutsugamushi in endemic regions with much smaller secondary reservoirs in wild rodents. 1,25 Common house mice are the zoonotic reservoirs of R akari, not only in crowded urban apartment buildings in the United States but also in all mice-infested buildings and sheds in more rural locations worldwide. Among the scrub typhus-carrying Leptotrombidium larval chigger mites, Leptotrombidium deliense, the Asian rodent chigger, is a principal vector throughout eastern Asia

and Eurasia. Phospholipase D1 25,26 Following scrub typhus-infected chigger bites, there is an 8- to 10-day incubation period before onset of classical clinical manifestations including bite-eschar, regional lymphadenopathy, conjunctival injection, hearing loss, and centrifugal rash. 25,26 In the temperate regions of Eurasia, there is a definite scrub typhus seasonal transmission cycle determined by peaking temperatures and humidity during weeks of marked seasonal change between spring and summer and fall and winter. 27 In the tropics, scrub typhus transmission occurs year-round. 25 In Asia, the most common endemic rickettsioses include scrub typhus, murine typhus, and Q fever, which may be difficult to differentiate clinically and also serologically due to cross-reacting antigens.