Epidemic Typhus - Transmission

Transmission

Epidemic typhus is thus found most frequently during times of war and deprivation. For example, typhus killed hundreds of thousands of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The deteriorating quality of hygiene in camps such as Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen created conditions where diseases such as typhus flourished. Situations in the twenty-first century with potential for a typhus epidemic would include refugee camps during a major famine or natural disaster. In the periods between outbreaks, when human to human transmission occurs less often, the flying squirrel serves as a zoonotic reservoir for the Rickettsia prowazekii bacterium.

Henrique da Rocha Lima in 1916 then proved that the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii was the agent responsible for typhus; he named it after H. T. Ricketts and Stanislaus von Prowazek, two zoologists who had died from typhus while investigating epidemics. Once these crucial facts were recognized, Rudolf Weigl in 1930 was able to fashion a practical and effective vaccine production method by grinding up the insides of infected lice that had been drinking blood. It was, however, very dangerous to produce, and carried a high likelihood of infection to those who were working on it.

A safer mass-production-ready method using egg yolks was developed by Herald R. Cox in 1938. This vaccine was widely available and used extensively by 1943.