Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Feb 6;11(2):213.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens11020213.

Zoonotic Episodes of Scabies: A Global Overview

Barbara Moroni  1 , Luca Rossi  1 , Charlotte Bernigaud  2   3 , Jacques Guillot  2   4
Affiliations
Review

Zoonotic Episodes of Scabies: A Global Overview

Barbara Moroni et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Zoonotic scabies (ZS), also referred to as "pseudoscabies", is considered a self-limiting disease with a short incubation period and transient clinical skin signs. It is commonly thought that Sarcoptes scabiei mites from animals are unable to successfully reproduce and persist on human skin; however, several ZS case reports have mentioned the persistence of symptoms and occasionally mites for weeks. The aim of this review was to collect and organize the sparse literature explicitly referring to S. scabiei zoonotic transmission, focusing on the source of the outbreak, the circumstances leading to the transmission of the parasite, the diagnosis including the identification of the Sarcoptes "strain" involved, and the applied treatments. A total of 46 articles, one conference abstract and a book were collected describing ZS cases associated with twenty animal hosts in five continents. Dogs were by far the most common source among pet owners, while diverse livestock and wildlife contributed to the caseload as an occupational disease. Genetic epidemiological studies of ZS outbreaks are still limited in number, but tools are available to fill this knowledge gap in the near future. Further research is also needed to understand the apparent heterogeneity in the morbidity, disease severity and timing of the response to treatment among people infected with different animal-derived strains.

Keywords: Sarcoptes scabiei; animals; pseudoscabies; sarcoptic mange; zoonosis; zoonotic scabies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
World map showing countries with cases of zoonotic scabies reported in the scientific literature (dark red: 4 or more articles associated with this country; light red: fewer than 4 articles).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Animal species origin of zoonotic episodes of scabies represented by number of articles/animal species collected in this review. Wildlife species are highlighted in yellow. The ZS episodes described by Delafond and Bourguignon [7] were not included in this figure but are mentioned in the main text.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Distribution of typical clinical skin manifestation in zoonotic (in red) and human (in blue) scabies, adapted from Engelman et al. [75].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Fain A. Epidemiological problems of scabies. Int. J. Dermatol. 1978;17:20–30. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-4362.1978.tb06040.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Karimkhani C., Colombara D.V., Drucker A.M., Norton S.A., Hay R., Engelman D., Steer A., Whitfeld M., Naghavi M., Dellavalle R.P. The global burden of scabies: A cross-sectional analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2015;17:1247–1254. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(17)30483-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Engelman D., Cantey P.T., Marks M., Solomon A.W., Chang A.Y., Chosidow O., Enbiale W., Engels D., Hay R.J., Hendrickx D., et al. The public health control of scabies: Priorities for research and action. Lancet. 2019;394:81–92. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31136-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rehmus W.E., Prendiville J.S. Scabies and Pseudoscabies. In: Hoeger P., Kinsler V., Yan A., Harper J., Oranje A., Bodemer C., Larralde M., Luk D., Mendiratta V., Purvis D., editors. Harper’s Textbook of Pediatric Dermatology. John Wiley& Sons Ltd.; Hoboken, NJ, USA: 2019. pp. 711–722. - DOI
    1. Burgess I. Sarcoptes scabiei and scabies. Adv. Parasitol. 1993;33:235. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources