Evidences for Trombicula scutellaris to be a vector of scrub typhus in Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

Among the cases of scrub typhus newly recognized in Japan after the World War II, those prevalent in the Izu Shichito Islands of Tokyo Prefecture, in Awa-gun, Chiba Prefecture, and in Mt. Fuji area, Shizuoka Prefecture, are called as the "Shichito type scrub typhus" or as the "scutellaris type scrub typhus, " and Trombicula scutellaris has been presumably incriminated as a potential vector of this type of scrub typhus. The study on scrub typhus in Chiba Prefecture was commenced in 1952, when the so called "twentydays fever, " an endemic disease in this Prefecture, was assumed to belong to a scrub typhus by Kasahara et al. (1952) and Kitaoka et al. (1952).