Flinders Island spotted fever: a newly recognised endemic focus of tick typhus in Bass Strait. Part 1. Clinical and epidemiological features
Stewart, R.S.
Medical Journal of Australia 154(2): 94-99
1991
ISSN/ISBN: 0025-729X PMID: 1986207 Document Number: 372107
Twenty-six cases of a spotted-fever-like illness have been identified over a 17-year period in the population of about 1000 of Flinders Island, Tasmania, Australia. The usual features were a fever, headache, myalgia, slight cough, arthralgia without joint swelling and a maculopapular rash which did not resemble the common exanthems. Twelve cases had a focal skin lesion. Available evidence implicates ticks as the vector; of 9 islanders bitten by ticks (but who did not contract illness) in 1988-89, 7 were identified as Ixodes tasmani, 1 as Aponomma auruginans and 1 as A. hydrosauri.