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What is Queensland tick typhus and explain in detail?
Queensland tick typhus is a zoonotic disease caused by the bacterium Rickettsia australis.
It is transmitted by the ticks Ixodes holocyclus and Ixodes tasmani.

Signs and symptoms
Queensland tick typhus is a tick-borne disease. Onset of the illness is variable; there is an incubation period of 2 to 14 days after being bitten by the infected tick. The clinical features of this illness include fever, headache, an eschar at the site of the tick bite, erythematous eruption and satellite lymphadenopathy.  Queensland tick typhus symptomatically resembles Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a less severe tick-borne disease.  If left untreated for longer than one to two weeks, the disease can take longer to recover from and pose a heightened risk of pneumonitis, encephalitis, septic shock, or even death. In some cases, even after the initial rash is cleared, the person may still experience prolonged lethargy or fatigue, which is common in such rickettsial infections.

Causes
Queensland tick typhus is caused by the bacteria Rickettsia australis from the genus Rickettsia.

Tick life cycle
The tick life cycle consists of four stages: egg, larva, nymph, and adult.  An adult female tick can lay over a thousand eggs in her lifetime.  Once a tick hatches from an egg, it enters the larvae stage, where it must attach to any available host and begin feeding. After it has fed, it detaches and molts, entering the larger nymph stage. In this stage it must reattach to a larger host and feed again, whereupon it detaches and molts again. This results in the adult stage, where it feeds one last time and is able to sexually reproduce.The stage when ticks are most able to transmit this disease is the nymph stage. They are also the most dangerous in this stage since they are usually less than two millimeters in size and can stay virtually undetected until they are done feeding.

Transmission
Queensland tick typhus is transmitted primarily by two types of tick: Ixodes holocyclus and Ixodes tasmani. After the initial attachment to a host, depending on the species and life stage of the tick, it takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours for it to begin to feed. Once a tick attaches, it can stay on a host for about 12 to 18 hours and then falls off when full. A tick must be attached for a long period of time to transmit bacteria. A tick that appears flat and small probably has not eaten yet.

Pathogenesis
After transmission from the infected tick, the bacterium Rickettsia australias enters the body via the bloodstream. The first sign of disease is damage to the skins microcirculation, which results in a rash. From there, the damage continues further into vital organs and can ultimately result in sepsis with multi-organ failure if left untreated.

Diagnosis
This disease can be challenging to diagnose because the initial signs are non-descript and relatively common.  Analyzing recent travel history can be vital in the beginning stages of treatment. Serological assays are the best means of diagnosing this disease, with the indirect microimmunofluorescence assay (IFA) being considered the best tool. However, underlying illnesses, such as rheumatologic and other immune-mediated disorders, can lead to false positives