{"id":569488,"date":"2026-04-07T09:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569488\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T09:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:13:10","slug":"health-officials-report-record-number-of-potentially-fatal-typhus-cases-everyone-is-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569488\/","title":{"rendered":"Health officials report record number of potentially fatal typhus cases: ‘Everyone is at risk’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Officials in Los Angeles County have warned residents that typhus, a serious and potentially fatal flea-borne illness, is surging, according to the Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What’s happening?<\/p>\n

On April 2, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued a bulletin<\/a> to alert residents to “a record number of flea-borne typhus cases” in the area.<\/p>\n

The Department reported that 2025 had the “highest-ever recorded” number of cases, up nearly 20% from 187 cases in 2024.<\/p>\n

According to the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, typhus rates have been rising in Los Angeles County. There were 141 reported infections in 2021, 171 in 2022, and a “slight decrease” in 2023.<\/p>\n

“Alarmingly, nearly 9 out of 10 people identified as infected with typhus required hospitalization,” the Department of Health cautioned in its bulletin<\/a>, emphasizing the severity of the flea-borne illness and an urgent need for public awareness.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the Times described<\/a> a worryingly broad public health threat that affected individuals aged 1 to 85 in 2025.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is at risk of contracting typhus,” the outlet explained, adding that proximity to “rats or other rodents” and outdoor living placed some residents at a higher risk of contracting the disease.<\/p>\n

Why is this concerning?<\/p>\n

“An ancient disease spread by fleas has been making a comeback in California,” Gizmodo<\/a> reported, alluding to the fact that typhus had become rare.<\/p>\n

Data from the Centers for Disease Control<\/a> on historical typhus rates in the United States illustrated this with an unsettling visual. In the late 1940s, typhus rates dwindled dramatically.<\/p>\n

Cases plummeted from 5,401 in 1944 to 163 in 1954, remaining in the dozens for decades.<\/p>\n

“Because the disease is rare, in 1987, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists voted to remove flea-borne typhus from the nationally notifiable disease list,” the CDC explained<\/a> in regard to the data set, which ended that year after more than 30 years of negligible infection rates.<\/p>\n

In 1987, the total number of recorded cases in the U.S. stood at 49, versus 220 cases in one California county in 2025.<\/p>\n

Typhus isn’t the only vector-borne illness that’s either returning or surging<\/a> anew, as researchers have reported: tick-borne pathogens like Lyme disease are skyrocketing, as are mosquito-borne diseases like Zika.<\/p>\n

Although the roster of vectors and the diseases they spread is broad, the root of the public health risk is similar across the board: rising temperatures and human activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the planet overheats, the geographic range of disease vectors like ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas broadens, their breeding seasons lengthen, and people spend more time outdoors.<\/p>\n

Consequently, infection rates for once-rare illnesses spike, as is the case in Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n

What’s being done about it?<\/p>\n

In its bulletin<\/a>, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health advised residents to take flea-prevention measures for people and pets, such as using an EPA-registered insect repellent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Officials also urged residents to learn the signs of typhus and to seek medical attention promptly, given the severity of the illness.<\/p>\n

Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices \u2014 and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD’s exclusive Rewards Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials in Los Angeles County have warned residents that typhus, a serious and potentially fatal flea-borne illness, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[45167,97,13489,4281,86566,249085],"class_list":{"0":"post-569488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cases","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-los-angeles-county","11":"tag-los-angeles-times","12":"tag-public-awareness","13":"tag-typhus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}