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Pest Management Priducts Division of CSPA
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Human Health Impact
Historically, the tiny rat flea has greatly impacted civilization as carrier of the plague. The tropical or Oriental rat flea is the main carrier of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Typically feeding on the brown rat, Rattus rattus, and the black or roof rat, R. norvegicus, the rat flea also readily feeds on people.
Plague has probably afflicted humans since before the time of Christ. The Philistines are recorded as suffering from a disease with symptoms like those of the bubonic plague. The first pandemic of record was probably in the sixth century, beginning in Egypt. During the late Middle Ages, the Black Death laid waste to Europe in another pandemic. An estimated 25 million people died in the fourteenth century. From 1664 to 1666, 70,000 Londoners dies out of a population of 450,000. Civil disorder broke out. Terrified neighbors even put plague victims to death.
What made the disease so frightening was that its cause was unknown. Only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did a few brave researchers establish that the rat flea had to be present to spread the disease. That discovery came during the third pandemic, which began in China's Yunnan Province in the 1890s and spread to the West Coast of the U.S. and throughout the world. Deaths in the U.S. occurred in San Francisco, Los Angeles and cities farther east, such as New Orleans.
The disease is characterized by rapidly developing high fever, headache, prostration, fatigue and delirium. By the second day, lesions know as bubos (hence bubonic plague) appear in the groin and armpits. Mortality rates are high.
Cases of plague still occur in the U.S., primarily in wild rodents. In the western states, 334 cases were reported from 1970-1994.
Murine Typhus - Found worldwide, several species of flea, including Xenopsylla cheopis (the main vector), Nosopsylla fasciatus and Leptopsylla segnis carry murine typhus. Flea feces transmit murine typhus when the host human scratches his or her skin to alleviate itching caused by fleabites, allowing the pathogen to enter the body. While thousands of cases occurred each year early in the 20th century, the disease is rare in the U.S., occurring primarily in the South. Symptoms include sudden high fever, headache, nausea, coughing and a spotted rash.
Flea-Caused Infections - The female chigoe, jigger or sandflea bores into the skin, usually of the feet, causing extreme irritation. If Tunga penetrans is not removed, it can cause an infection, which may become gangrenous. Chigoes are found in tropical Americas and Africa and are most prevalent in people who walk barefoot.
