Abstract
A 77-year-old woman with chronic renal failure and malnutrition had thick crusted plaques, erythematous papules and scaly patches on her entire body. The skin scraping and exfoliated skin scales showed the presence of numerous itch mites, Sarcopbes scabiei var horriums 8667 mites were counted from Ig of the collected samples.
Twenty six cases a pruritic rash were reported among hospital personnel: mites were recovered from only one. Among other hospitalized patients, 2 cases of scabies were reported. One patient had pruritic papules and burrows on the left upper arm and the other had lesions in the axilla, mites were recovered from both. Subsequent evaluation suggested that they acquired scabies from a contaminated blood pressure monitoring cuff and a clinical thermometer.
The contaminated medical instruments are considered to be fomites, a mode of dissemination of mites.