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Wholesale fish distributors, produce warehouses and homeless encampments line Ceres Avenue downtown, creating perfect conditions for rats. Uneaten food is dumped on the street — a salad platter was recently splattered on the asphalt — and discarded clothing piles up only to be swirled into rats' nests. Those rats, experts say, are likely contributing to the growing number of typhus infections cropping up on skid row and other parts of the region. The disease is spread by fleas, which are carried by rats, opossums and pets.

A flea-borne typhus outbreak in the Los Angeles area has also rocked Long Beach – the third city to be struck down in the region. Officials have this year recorded 12 cases of the bug in the city, home to 470,000 people and around 20 miles (32km) south of downtown LA. A further 20 cases have been recorded in Pasadena since the start of 2018 - and 59 in the whole of LA County in total. Pasadena and Long Beach are both technically in LA County, however they have their own health departments which record their own figures.

Between July and September, the county identified nine cases of flea-borne typhus associated with downtown Los Angeles, and six of those cases were in people experiencing homelessness, according to the county. There are (now) 57 cases of flea-borne typhus in LA County, a health department spokesperson says. Typhus fever has reached "epidemic levels" in Pasadena and an outbreak has hit downtown LA. On Friday, one city in the county -- Pasadena -- reported epidemic levels of typhus fever. This year, 20 Pasadena residents have been confirmed to have typhus fever, up from the expected one to five cases per year,...

LOS ANGELES — An outbreak of flea-borne typhus has hit downtown Los Angeles, the county Department of Public Health said Thursday. Health officials say they are investigating several cases of the disease that infected fleas can spread to humans, CBS Los Angeles reports. While the fleas can come from cats, rats and opossums, pets and animals do not get sick from typhus. In people, however, typhus can cause high fever, chills, headache and rash. It is not transmitted from person to person and can be treated with antibiotics. "Although typhus normally occurs throughout L.A. County, we are observing several cases...

Public health authorities are investigating an outbreak of flea-borne typhus in downtown Los Angeles. Typhus is a disease caused by bacteria found in infected fleas that can come from many kinds of animals including cats, rats and opossums. Symptoms can include high fever, chills, headaches and rashes. Accumulations of trash that attract animals like rats may increase the risk of exposure. Typhus is treated with antibiotics. It is not transmitted person-to-person.

A flea-borne typhus outbreak among homeless in downtown Los Angeles triggered an investigation by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health after several cases were reported, the agency said Thursday. NBC sources say the number may be upwards of at least a dozen. Typhus can cause fever, chills, body aches, nausea and vomiting, cough, and rash, but can be treated with antibiotics. If not treated however, it can be fatal. Flea-borne typhus is a bacteria that spreads to humans when they come in contact with infected fleas or rat feces. Animals such as cats, rodents and opossums all attract...

When Europeans came to the Americas, they brought some nasty diseases — smallpox, cholera and typhus, to name a few.But one pathogen was already there. And it likely traveled to the shores of South America in a surprising vessel.By analyzing DNA from 1,000-year-old mummies, scientists have found evidence that sea lions and seals were the first to bring tuberculosis to the New World. The sea animals likely infected people living along the coast of Peru and northern Chile, a team from the University of Tubingen in Germany reported Wednesday in the journal Nature."We weren't expecting to find a connection to...

German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving. Critics are warning that German taxpayers will end up paying billions of euros to provide healthcare for a never-ending wave of asylum seekers. This is in addition to the billions of euros already being spent to provide newcomers with food, clothing and shelter. In addition to the massive economic and social costs, as well as the burden of increased crime, including a rape epidemic, Germans are now facing the risk of being exposed to exotic...

: Infectious Diseases Society of America Date: 2005-12-15 New Study Identifies Louse-borne Diseases That Ravaged Napoleon's Army Using dental pulp extracted from the teeth of soldiers who died during Napoleon’s disastrous retreat through Russia in 1812, a new study finds DNA evidence that epidemic typhus and trench fever ran rampant among the French Grand Army. The study, published in the Jan. 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, identifies the specific species of louse-borne pathogens that were a major cause of death among the remains of the retreating army. Napoleon marched into Russia in the summer...

SANTA ANA (CBS) — Vector control officials plan to try Tuesday to corral feral cats living on the campuses of two Santa Ana schools in an effort to reduce the flea population and stave off the spread of typhus, a potentially deadly disease. Santa Ana officials announced last week that someone living near Broadway and Washington Avenue in Santa Ana was hospitalized with typhus last month but has since recovered. City spokesman Jose Gonzalez underscored this morning that the victim had no connection with any local schools. Orange County Vector Control officials have been passing out literature to residents in...

Cheney warns of new attacks Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed. In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects. And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than...

North Korea’s armed forces are capable of carrying out 13 kinds of viral and bacterial attack, the South Korean Government said yesterday in one of the most detailed assessments of the dictatorship’s biological weapons arsenal. In a submission to the South Korean National Assembly, the Defence Minister also said that the North had 5,000 tonnes of chemical weapons, believed to include mustard gas, phosgene and sarin. Among its biological agents are cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, typhoid fever and dysentery. Despite the alarming assessment, Kim Tae Young also said that his country’s armed forces had the capacity pre-emptively to destroy...

> Even as the Russians retreated before him in disarray, Napoleon found his army disappearing, his frantic doctors powerless to explain what had struck down a hundred thousand soldiers. The emperor’s vaunted military brilliance suddenly seemed useless, and when the Russians put their own occupied capital to the torch, the campaign became a desperate race through the frozen landscape as troops continued to die by the thousands. Through it all, with tragic heroism, Napoleon’s disease-ravaged, freezing, starving men somehow rallied, again and again, to cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” >