San Luis R.C. fights tick-borne disease
Launches campaign to prevent rickettsial illness
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. — Public health officials here are stepping up efforts to prevent a local outbreak of rickettsial illness, a tick-borne disease that has claimed lives in other Sonora cities and in nearby Mexicali, Baja Calif.
With the number of cases increasing in other cities amid rising heat, health workers have been offering free anti-tick baths for dogs and spraying against ticks in residential areas where the insects are thought most likely to spread. Spraying also has been done in schools in the border city next to Yuma County.
The campaign comes as health officials record 23 deaths attributed to rickettsial disease in and around Mexicali and another 16 around Sonora since the start of the year.
Commonly known as spotted fever, rickettsial illness causes fever, nausea, headaches and skin rashes. The last death in the area of San Luis Rio Colorado attributed to the disease occurred in 2015, in Riito, a tiny community south of the city on the road to El Golfo de Santa Clara.
Given newly documented cases in the region, San Luis Rio Colorado decided to get an early start this year on what has become an annual fight to prevent an outbreak, said Daniel de La Paz, who heads the city’s public health department.
“Currently there is more lethality in the disease,” he said. “More people are dying, and we don’t want that to happen in our city. We want to avoid any cases of rickettsia, so we’re starting our prevention program sooner (this year) than normal.”
The Sonora Health Department recently announced that 2017 has seen a jump in the mortality rate among those afflicted with rickettsial disease, with seven of 10 cases resulting in death, mainly in communities in the southern half of the states.
That, the health department said, compares with three deaths in every 10 cases recorded in Sonora in 2016.
De La Paz said keeping San Luis Rio Colorado free of the disease will depend on residents taking steps on their own to keep their pets and homes free of ticks. He said the city’s past campaigns to educate the public about the risk of rickettsial illness have had limited success.