Los Angeles officials have pledged to fight an outbreak of typhus, as a city of glittering wealth grapples with a disease linked to intense poverty.
“We’re deploying every available resource to help control and stop this outbreak,” said Alex Comisar, press secretary for Los Angeles’s mayor, Eric Garcetti.
Many of those resources have focused on the city’s large homeless population, considered most at risk for contracting the flea-borne illness. There have been 64 cases of typhus reported across Los Angeles county so far this year, more than the 53 cases recorded this time last year, and on track to surpass the 67 cases diagnosed last year total. A department of public health spokesperson said the outbreak began with 11 cases of typhus in downtown Los Angeles, six of which were diagnosed in people who were homeless. U
This same time last year, California’s homeless population was threatened by an outbreak of hepatitis A, another disease associated with impoverishment and poor sanitation, which killed 21 people and infected hundreds.
According to the most recent count, 53,000 people are homeless across Los Angeles county. Chronic sickness and hospitalization are common. Many have been forced into the streets by the city’s soaring rents and lack of affordable housing. Homeless residents have no choice but to live in close proximity to rats and other rodents, putting the homeless and their pets especially at risk for flea exposure and typhus. The lack of access to toilets and places to wash up can also help the spread of disease.
Dr Timothy Brewer, a professor of medicine, epidemiology, and public health at UCLA, said: “It’s an uncommon disease.” He said in his six years of practicing medicine in Los Angeles, he had seen one confirmed case of typhus. Some people may not even know they have it. The common symptoms are headache, fever, and sometimes a rash, he said. It is the city’s very poorest, living under bridges or in tents, who bear the most risk.
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