relapsing fever

[Olesya]

Today, I saw this article on Sott page "Mystery fever grips Moradabad, India - over 26,000 sick" http://www.sott.net/article/266582-Mystery-fever-grips-Moradabad-India-over-26000-sick

A mystery fever has affected more than 26,000 people in Bhojpur area of Moradabad.

Taking cognizance of the matter, the health department had sent a team of experts to the affected area to take stock of the situation. The team, headed by director communicable diseases and epidemic control, Dr MK Gupta, submitted a status report to the health department on Thursday. The team also took the blood samples of some patients and sent them to the National Center for Disease Control lab in Delhi for analysis.

Dr MK Gupta has attributed the mystery fever to high pathogen burden in Bhojpur. Pathogens are disease causing micro organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses, commonly found in sewage, rotting household waste, run-off water from farms and open drains. "The main source of pathogens in Bhojpur are illegal slaughter houses which feed the big ones in the main city. A visit to the affected area explains why people are taking ill," he said.

He added that almost every second household in the affected ghetto is into scrap dealing of e-waste. This means that there is no dearth of spots for rainwater to collect and facilitate the breeding of mosquitoes. Since Moradabad is an industrial area the general suspended particulate matter volume in the air is high. This makes the heat index or the levels of humidity and heat of the place high, said the expert.

The levels appeared to be higher in this pocket inhabited by scrap dealers and slaughterers. Most of the scrap dealers unwind the discarded electronic products to extract metals such as lead, aluminum and copper to sell it in the market. In the process of extraction, they tend to add to the atmospheric pollutants. The pollution adds to the primary problem of sanitation, particularly overflowing drains and sewage water.

Citing the above reasons, the expert team has stated that cumulatively the factors accelerated the prevalence of seasonal flu and viral fever. "The atmosphere in Bhojpur increased the virility of the pathogens significantly which led to such a high incidence of the viral fever," the team said.

The health team also reviewed the arrangements to attend the huge chunk of patients. The officials stated that while most patients were resting at home, additional beds were provided at all the health facilities in and around Bhojpur, including the police hospital in Moradabad. The stock of medicines is also in place.

The team has refuted reports that two deaths were related to the mystery fever in Bhojpur. "While one of the patients was suffering with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the baby was extremely malnourished," Dr Gupta said.

The team has sent 15 blood samples to NCDC where microbiologists will isolate the specific virus behind the problem. However, health officials are not excited about finding the cause of disease unless it comes out to be some bacteria. "X,Y, Z - whatever the virus be, the plan of action will not change," said a team member.

Moradabad has been gripped by pathogens many times. In 2010, seven children had died and over 35 taken seriously ill. Later, influenza B virus was found to be the cause of the illness. Similar episodes can be recounted including the one in 1836. It was called 'Moradabad fever', which also spread to other western UP districts like Agra and Saharanpur.

Meanwhile, state Rashtriya Lok Dal president Munna Singh Chauhan has blamed the state government for not being able to contain the fever in Moradadbad when it was in the budding stage. "UP government has also failed to check encephalitis in eastern districts and I fear a similar fate for the problem in Moradabad as well," he said.

During my search on the cause of 'Moradabad fever' an interesting old book (a reprint) popped up, i.e. "A Treatise on Relapsing or Famine Fever" By R. T. Lyons http://books.google.com/books?id=rfxdf-Qfsb8C&pg=PA194&lpg=PA194&dq=causes+of+Moradabad+fever+in+1836&source=bl&ots=72-vuSwwVB&sig=CG9FwzpwUrsXqM4Fwsbx2EUsdOQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=07o7UorCDaGqiALJpIDQDA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=causes%20of%20Moradabad%20fever%20in%201836&f=false

From the short description of the book on amazon:

This work ia an adaptation of the chapter on relapsing fever in Murchiaon a Treatise on the Continned Fevers of Great Britain, to the disease as it has heen observed in India. The divisions of the subject, the descriptions, the views, and mode of reasoning of thia author have been followed, and many passages have been extracted verbatim or abridged from the original. The facts, however, have been derived entirely from Indian observation, I have adopted the doctrine of the identity of intermittent, remittent, and continued fevers, because I believe it to be sound and true. These fevers do not appear to bo distinct diseases, diifering from each other in essential nature, but forma or varieties of the same disease. In the following pages, it will be seen that relapsing fever has as often, if not more frequently, assumed the intermittent as the remittent form, while the continned form of the disease has been comparatively rare. The intermittent and remittent relapsing fever of India is the same disease as the continued relapsing fever of Great Britain. The cause, the genera! symptoms, the complications and the sequelse are identical; the entire natural history of the disease is the same in all. Intermittent, remittent and continued varieties of the other forms of fever are likewise observed in this country.

I didn't have time to read the whole book, but while reading parts of it, it just occurred to me that following the hypothesis of R. T. Lyons that all the diseases he investigated in that period of time from 1804-1871 in different parts of the world , i.e. epidemics of lethal fevers, (or plagues) possibly have the same contagion (maybe, mutated forms of the same?) and this mysterious contagion might have the cosmic origins. Just a hunch. There is another possible curious connection to "Mysterious sickness killing Kansas dogs." http://www.sott.net/article/266537-Mysterious-sickness-killing-Kansas-dogs Here are my notes.

p.2
The following are some of the designations which have been applied to relapsing fever: bilious fever, Hunter, 1804; three days' fever, Cavell, 1824; rheumatic fever, Robinson, 1825; bronchitis fever of infants and young children, Adams, 1828; remittent fever of the Bengal rainy season, Twining, 1832; jungle fever, McDonell, 1833, Eyre, 1847; epidemic rheumatic fever, Twining, 1835, and old authors; epidemic congestive fever, Mac-Nab, 1836; epidemic remittent fever, Spencer, 1836; catarrhal fever and gastro-hepatic fever, R.H. Hunter, 1836; bilious intermittent fever, Shirreff, 1837, and old authors; bilious intermittent fever and remittent fever, Graham, 1839; yellow remittent fever, John Murray, 1839; billious intermittent fever, H.J. Carter, 1843; peculiar for of eruptive fever, Henry Goodeve, 1844, fever like the Scotch epidemic of 1843, Lyell, 1853; typhus, Farquar, 1853, Bengal Sanitary Commission, Chuckerbutty, Partridge, 1864; remittent fever complicated with jaundice, and ardent continued fever, Morehead, 1856 and 1860, Peet, 1864; dengue, scarlatina rheumatica, Peet, 1864; relapsing fever, Gray De Renzy, 1864, D.B. Smith, 1866, Hugh Clark, 1868, contagious jaundice fever, Bateson, 1866; relapsing contagious fever, Green, 1866; relapsing or famine bilious remittent fever, Sutherland, 1866; febris e fame, Udoy Chund Dutt, 1866; epidemic ague, or jungle, or bilious remittent fever Eteson, 1869; Peshawur fever, Bellew, 1869; yellow relapsing fever, Bryden, 1870; red fever, Norman Chevers, 1871.

[...]

SECTION III.

Historical Account of Relapsing Fever.

It is necessary to preface the following history with a few remarks explanatory of the grounds on which the diagnosis has been made of the disease which, until within the last few years, had not been recognized in India. It will be seen that it was very prevalent in former days, and was probably a more destructive pestilence than cholera; and that many epidemics of it occurred in almost every part of the country, and in almost every year of the present century. The chief guide in ascertaining the nature of the majority of these epidemics was the appearance of jaundice in the course of a severe and fatal fever. In my own experience, this symptom has been met with only in relapsing fever. I am not aware that any other observer has seen it in this country in connection with the other forms of specific fever; and although it has been known in Europe to appear in the course of typhus and typhoid fever, the circumstances has been looked upon as rare and exceptional. it has been alleged, however, by the highest authorities, that jaundice is a not unusual accompaniment of malarious fever....

[...]

From these facts, the conclusion may be drawn that the seasons, i.e. heat, cold, dryness or rains, do not of themselves possess any predisposing influence on the disease, although the course and character of epidemics, and, indeed, their origin, are in many instances, indirectly connected with these powerful agencies. European and Indian experience of the disease coincides on this point. Murchinson thus sums up the facts bearing on the subject:-"Epidemics of relapsing fever appear commence, progress, and decline, quite irrespectively of the season of the year."

[..]

The indirect influence of a high temperature in abating the severity, reducing the mortality, and limiting the spread of the disease is sufficiently apparent... But the extinction of the disease cannot be attributed to a high temperature in the face of the fact of the origination of epidemics in the height of hot weaver, as in 14 out of 45 epidemics in jails in upper India, of the persistence of others during the hot month, and their decline in many instances in the cold weather.
[...]

Corresponding facts preclude the idea that cold has any direct influence on the prevalence of the disease; but it's indirect effect on the spread severity, and mortality of the disease is very marked.

[...]

I observed the remarkable influence of rain or wet in developing the disease in those who had already contracted it; and it would appear that a similar influence is exercised by wet in the case of relapsing fever. Humidity of the atmosphere or of the soil, in themselves, have no predisposing influence, for the disease originated in regions and in seasons remarkable for dryness.

[...]

It is well known that districts irrigated by canals are remarkably prolific of enlargement of the spleen, a very serious complication when it occurs of relapsing fever.

[...]

By aiding in developing this lesion as it appears to do, a humid district would materially increase the danger, and thus add to mortality, immediate or ultimate, resulting during or subsequent to an epidemic...


I have already alluded to the fact that splenic complication has been less common in India than in the relapsing fever of Great Britain and Ireland, the soil of which countries, under the best circumstances, contains much moisture, even more, perhaps, that of the irrigated districts of this country.


It would appear, therefore, from the evidence, that while humidity has little or no influence on the prevalence of the disease, it markedly predisposes to the dangerous lesions of the enlargement of the spleen. It would like wise appear that paralytic symptoms are not uncommon in humid countries, such as Saharunpore and Mangalore, as a complication of the relapsing fever.

[...]

Bodily Fatigue appears to have an influence to the reception and spread of the fever.

[...]

Other circumstances being favorable to the development of the disease, Mental Depression might be supposed to come into play in individual instances, as a predisposing condition. I decline, however, to admit that depressing passions have any appreciable influences on the epidemic manifestation of disease.

[...]

On the contrary, I have found that if the truths of physiology and the precepts of sanitation receive due attention, and not suppressed from considerations erroneously supposed to be legal or judicial, because they have been affirmed on occasions by judicial officers, prisoners in jails can be maintained in as good health as native troops or the better classes of the civil population.

[...]

Previous illnesses predispose to relapsing fever. Although the subject has not been mentioned by writers, it would appear that scurvy is a powerful predisposing cause. Prisoners in jails and native troops, who have suffered much from epidemics, are often affected with scurvy or soft and bleeding gums. The debility and loss of vigour induced by temperance, the use of bhangor opium, and by debauchery, are favorable to the development of the disease; but it should never be forgotten that the most robust health is not proof against reception of contagion.

[...]

Relapsing fever being contagious, overcrowding of course, favours it's propagation... Overcrowding, associated with filth and destitution, appears to be the most favourable condition for the reception and spread of the disease.

...Sheriff elsewhere observed, on the other hand, that whatever the ventilation and other conditions were good, the disease were rendered innocuous.

[...]

[Twining] In his account of the eruptive fever of 1824, he expresses a positive opinion that the disease was not contagious, for three reasons: namely, many escaped, although exposed to fever; it arose at the same time in remote parts of Calcutta; and it affected persons who had not had any communications with the sick. The same apparent anomalies have also been observed in the case of small-pox and measles, whose contagiousness is universally admitted, which have been known to occur in places and under certain circumstances in an inexplicable manner, and not contracted by some persons, even when fully exposed to the poison.

[...]

The contagiousness of relapsing fever in this country is proved by similar evidence to what which has been brought forward by Murchison with regard to the disease in Europe.

[...]

Stuart has recorded the fact that when the jail at Moradabad was affected in 1836, and the hospital was crowded to excess not one of the prisoners confined in the debtor's jail contracted the fever, although the latter building was situated within the walls of the criminal jail, and was not nearly so well ventilated. He justly attributed their exemption to the absence of communication with criminal prisoners. While the civil prisoners, who were isolated in the very midst of the fever-afflicted jail, escaped, every hospital attendant was laid up in consequence, as Stuart explained, of their necessarily close intercourse with the sick. The remarkable liability of hospital attendants to contract fever has been recorded by numerous observers.

[...]

Carter says that no medical officer of Sir Charles Napier's force escaped in the Hydrabad epidemic of 1843: "... Had our disease been a little more fatal, the living would no more have been able to bury their dead that they were in the time of Caius, who records this of the intermittent fever which prevailed in London in 1551.

Relapsing fever has often been imported by infected persons into localities before exempt.
That general good circumstances and health do afford some protection against the reception and spread of the contagion of relapsing fever, is, I think, supported by the fact that of several European gentlemen who visited the Umballa jail, during epidemic, of whom Bateson gives a list, not one contracted the disease.

p.216-217

The forgoing evidence is of the same character as the proof adduced by Murchinson to demonstrate the contagiousness of relapsing fever in Europe; and it is clear that the disease is likewise contagious in this country. It should be remembered that the above proofs are general, and establish the contagiousness of every form or variety of relapsing fever, the eruptive as well as the non-eruptive disease, and all thermometric varieties. These varieties are not only capable of propagating themselves by contagion, but there are proofs which form further evidence of their identity, that are capable of producing each other. The circumstances under which the individual varieties are generated, and under which one variety might produce another, are not clearly apparent; but instances of the intermingling in the same epidemic of more than one variety, are sufficiently numerous to justify the inference that they are identical in nature and can develop each other. Further observations in this direction, however, are necessary, as there cannot be a question that non-recognition of the disease, in it's protean forms, was the cause of many facts not having been observed, and thus allowed to lapse.

[...]

The eruptive fever can produce non-eruptive variety.

[...]

Amongst the anomalous cases in the eruptive epidemic of 1824, was one in which the eruptive fever was followed by an attack on the ninth day, or, as we should now say, by relapse of bilious remittent fever of great severity. The dogs of Twining's friend took non-eruprive fever, with jaundice, during an eruptive epidemic. The Calcutta epidemic of 1833 was of non-eruptive fever, but several of the patients had a red efflorescence over the whole skin on the second or third day of the fever.

[...]

Intermittent fever has never, to my knowledge, been publicly asserted to be contagious, though I have heard of this property of the disease being suspected by a few individuals. I trust that I have adduced convincing proofs of it's identity with relapsing fever, or rather that the latter disease has an intermittent variety, for a similar variety of the other forms of fever likewise exists. Two forms of disease unquestionably identical cannot be regarded as not having in common an essential character. The proofs of the contagiousness of the intermittent variety of relapsing fever are sufficiently numerous.

[...]

In all epidemics the intermittent variety has arisen side by side with the remittent and continued, and some epidemics have consisted entirely of intermittent fever. It is impossible to believe under these circumstances that the intermittent variety was wanting in a character conspicuous in the other two. The identity of bilious intermittent fever of Carter, as observed by him in the fearful Hydrabad epidemic of 1843, with the bilious remittent fever of old authors, and the relapsing fever of modern pathologists, being obvious, the property of contagiousness cannot be denied to it; seeing, further, that the rapidity of the spread and the persistence of the disease through the greater portion of the year, and throughout different seasons, the great mortality, and the liability of medical attendants to contract it, were circumstances consistent with the character of contagious distempers. The want of more complete proofs of contagion in this epidemic was evidently due to imperfect observation, and not the absence of facts.

[...]

The continuity between the imported cases and the epidemic was maintained during two months by cases of intermittent fever, and one case of remittent fever, mistaken for hepatitis.

Now, from the article about the mysterious and deadly disease killing the dogs in Lyon Country, Kansas :

Dozens of dogs that seemed to be healthy quickly became deathly ill at the shelter. "We're in the process now of hoping it's not some virus that we're not aware of ... some new form of distemper or this new circle virus that's been reported around the country," said Emporia veterinarian Floyd Dorsey.

Dorsey thinks it started with dogs found wandering out in the country that were picked up and brought to the shelter. "We've been trying to contain it since then and each time we think it's contained, it seems to break out again," said Dorsey.

The sick dogs started with what seemed like kennel cough, but progressed to matted eyes, green mucus from the nose, and fevers. "The virus can affect the brain and the central nervous system, cause seizures, cause wobbliness when they walk. They go off food, won't eat and usually have to be put down at that point," said Dorsey.

There are some similarities which are striking, osit.