The unrecognized burden of typhoid fever

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Typhoid fever (TF), caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, is the most common cause of enteric fever, responsible for an estimated 129,000 deaths and more than 11 million cases annually. Although several reviews have provided global and regional TF disease burden estimates, major gaps in our understanding of TF epidemiology remain.

Areas covered: We provide an overview of the gaps in current estimates of TF disease burden and offer suggestions for addressing them, so that affected communities can receive the full potential of disease prevention offered by vaccination and water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions.

Expert commentary: Current disease burden estimates for TF do not capture cases from certain host populations, nor those with atypical presentations of TF, which may lead to substantial underestimation of TF cases and deaths. These knowledge gaps pose major obstacles to the informed use of current and new generation typhoid vaccines.

KEYWORDS:

• Typhoid
• enteric fever
• disease burden
• disease ascertainment
• vaccination

Disclaimer

The findings and conclusions expressed in this report do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Declaration of Interests

SK Obaro is a scientific advisory board member for GENDRIVAX; and is a research grant recipient of Pfizer and GSK. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.