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http://dx.doi.org/10.15324/kjcls.2019.51.3.344

Distribution of Chigger Mites as Tsutsugamushi Vectors Sampled in Seogwipo  

Lee, Hyeok Jae (Department of Clinical Laboratory Science, Gwangju Health Science University)
Park, Chul (Department of Clinical Laboratory Science, Gwangju Health Science University)
Publication Information
Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science / v.51, no.3, 2019 , pp. 344-350 More about this Journal
Abstract
We investigated the distribution of chigger mites in Seogwipo, Jeju Island to conduct surveillance for the presence of Orientia tsutsugamushi. Using a total of 20 samplers, chigger mite larvas were sampled weekly from September to November in Rice field, Field, Waterway, and Glass field (4 locations), and we found up to 51 larvas of 3 different species of chigger mites. 64 field mice were captured when sampling for chigger mite-infested rodents in rice fields, waterways, fields, reservoirs and hills (5 locations) for 9 months from March, 2018 to November, using 100 Sherman traps with placing 20 traps in each location, and in each location the trap index was 0.08. Only back-striped field mice (Apodemus agrarius) were captured one at a time. They were most frequently captured in April with 15 mice, and then 436 chigger mites were collected from the total of 64 captured wild rodent, showing a chigger index of 6.8. The chigger index was the highest in November at 46.0, followed by 6.8 in July and 4.6 in June. PCR was performed to investigate if there were any O. tsutsugamushi hosts among the 487 chigger mites sampled from the captured rodents and this turned out to be negative.
Keywords
Chigger mite; Orientia tsutsugamushi; Seogwipo; Wild rodent;
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