Scrub typhus: A new cause of acute undifferentiated febrile illness in Latin America?

Severe cases develop respiratory, neurological, and cardiovascular damage. [...]very recently, O. tsutsugamushi was considered the exclusive member of the Orientia genus. Furthermore, species diversity and exact taxonomy are uncertain since many species are only known from the type series. [...]many questions on the Neotropical chigger fauna, host associations, and vector competence are unanswered. [...]physicians should maintain a high level of clinical awareness and include scrub typhus in the differential diagnosis of febrile patients, including travelers, even if they were exposed in countries that are not known to be endemic.Funding This work was supported by FAPESP under code 2019/19853–0 to FCJ, the Agencia Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo (FONDECYT Regular N° 1170810) to TW, a National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center training grant to DHW, and a Fogarty fellowship grant (N° 2D43TW010331) to ÁAFM.CRediT authorship contribution statement C. R. Silva-Ramos and Á. A. Faccini-Martínez wrote the draft manuscript; F. C. Jacinavicius, Á. A. Faccini-Martínez and T. Weitzel wrote the original manuscript; all authors critically reviewed the manuscript for relevant intellectual content; all authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that the manuscript was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.