ABSTRACT
Orientia tsutsugamushi (formerly Rickettsia tsutsugamushi) represents one of the most covert bacterial pathogens of present times. It is the etiological agent of scrub typhus, also known as “tsutsugamushi disease, as well as many cases of “fevers of unknown origin” across most of the countries in Southeast Asia and the Asia-PaciŠc region. It is a single species that comprises of many antigenic and genotypic variants.1 Scrub typhus is caused by the bite of the larvae of trombiculid mites harboring this etiological agent.
