Japanese Spotted Fever

Fever shoots upward. Headaches, muscle pain, exhaustion. A few days later the rash appears — reddish spots spreading across the trunk, and at the bite site a dark crust, a small burned mark the mite has left behind. Medically, Japanese spotted fever — also called tsutsugamushi fever — is a tropical infectious disease triggered by a bacterium named Orientia tsutsugamushi, transmitted by tiny harvest mite larvae in the grass and scrublands of East and Southeast Asia.