23 June, Chitwan: A halt in the supply of kits required for diagnosing scrub typhus from the government-level here has forced people to visit the private health facility in need.

According to the District Public Health Office (DPHO), Chitwan, the Office has not received the scrub typhus kits from the center for the past four months.
Prior to this, the Office would obtain kits from the Department of Health Services and provide to the Bharatpur Hospital.

The facility for testing the scrub typhus bacteria ( Orientia tsutsugamushi formally known as Rickettsia) is currently available only in the Chitwan Medical College. The college charges Rs 2,500 for per test. The service is free in government hospitals, however.

DPHO, Chitwan officiating Chief Narhari Sharma said efforts were on to get kits from the center, but to no avail. He said he had no idea why the center was not sending kits to the district. Four people have died from this bacterial disease that is transmitted by mites in the current fiscal year.

According DPHO Kit controller Ram KC, to date since the beginning of the current fiscal, 1,627 suspected patients underwent the test for scrub typhus and the results of 504 came positive.

It seems that the chances of transmission of scrub typhus bacteria are relatively higher in the months of Kattik and Asoj (mid-September to mid-November) as 166 and 112 scrub typhus cases were recorded in these months last year. RSS