Scrub Typhus after a Trip to Vietnam

To the Editor: In addition to malaria, leptospirosis, typhoid fever, amebiasis, and viral infections, the rickettsial diseases are an important consideration in the differential diagnosis of febrile infection in travelers returning from tropical Asia. Rickettsia tsutsugamushi is transmitted by chiggers of the genus leptotrombidium and causes scrub typhus, an illness reported in Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union, Japan, and Australia. New foci of scrub typhus have recently been described in Australia, Japan, Thailand, and Korea.1 We report here an instance of this disease in a traveler to Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam war in 1972. The patient, . . .