ABSTRACT
HISTORY AND EPIDEMIOLOGY OF EPIDEMIC TYPHUS The life-threatening louse-borne epidemic typhus, also named “jail fever,” caused by a rickettsia of typhus group, Rickettsia prowazekii, and vectorized by the human body louse, is one of the most dangerous arthropod-borne diseases. Zinsser (1) stated that epidemic typhus has probably caused more deaths than all of the wars in history. The origin of typhus is controversial. Some authors consider it to be an old European disease that caused the Athens plague. Others believe that the reservoir is extra-human and is of American origin, as shown by its presence in isolates from flying squirrels, Glaucomys volans volans (2), and their fleas and lice.
