An Eleven-Year Old Patient with Rikettsial Disease: Case Report

Abstract

Rickettsial diseases are a group of diseases caused by obligatory intracellular gram-negative coccobacillus and transmitted to humans by arthropod vectors. The main signs and symptoms during the clinical course of endemic typhus are fever, rash, myalgia, nausea, headache, diarrhea, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly and loss of appetite. The high incidence in the Mediterranean basin is believed to be a result of the hot climate. Due to lack of specific findings, the true incidence of the disease is not clear. Because delay in diagnosis and treatment leads to increased morbidity and mortality, treatment should be initiated immediately with clinical suspicion. Immunofluorescence antibody detection is the gold standard for diagnosis. The Weil-Felix test can be used in the absence of other tests. A patient with the diagnosis of rickettsial disease is presented here.