Spatiotemporal epidemiology and clinical manifestations of two decades of scrub typhus in India: a systematic review and meta-analysis
BMJ Global Health·
- DOI
- 10.1136/bmjgh-2025-018998
- PMID
- 40754340
- PMCID
- PMC12320085
- OpenAlex
- W4412957286
- Study type
- Systematic review
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The abstract frames scrub typhus as an increasing public health concern in India and indicates that its geographic and temporal patterns may inform management and control policy. It also notes that addressing the reported upsurge may require an interdisciplinary public health approach.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The article asks how reported scrub typhus in India varied across time and geography from 2003 to 2023, using published literature to summarize cases by year and state.
Study design
This is a peer-reviewed systematic review and meta-analysis registered in PROSPERO. The abstract states that it used available literature to analyze reported scrub typhus cases over a two-decade period.
Population and setting
The setting is India, with cases summarized by state and year between 2003 and 2023. The population is people represented in the published scrub typhus case literature included by the review.
Main findings
The review identified 47,650 cumulative scrub typhus cases in India across the study period. Among 35,243 cases with fatality information, the reported case fatality rate was 5%. The abstract also reports increasing infections after 2010, with peaks in 2019 and 2022, heterogeneous symptom reporting across clinical domains, frequent use of the Weil-Felix test, and doxycycline use for treatment.
Public-health relevance
The abstract frames scrub typhus as an increasing public health concern in India and indicates that its geographic and temporal patterns may inform management and control policy. It also notes that addressing the reported upsurge may require an interdisciplinary public health approach.
Important limitations
The supplied abstract directly indicates reliance on available literature and notes heterogeneity in symptom-related studies. This summary is also limited to the supplied single-article abstract and metadata; the full paper is needed for decision-grade interpretation of methods, inclusion criteria, bias assessment, and regional estimates.
GIDS interpretation
Within a literature-monitoring context, this article is discoverable as a peer-reviewed systematic review on scrub typhus in India, with classifier links for scrub typhus, diagnostics, health policy, transmission dynamics, and treatment. These labels provide topical context only and should not be read as confirmation from any live surveillance signal.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 12 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.