Question: What is the strangest disease or epidemic you've worked with?

Sally Cutler answered on 11 Nov 2014:

Hi, for me this is louse-borne relapsing fever a disease that used to be global, but now persists in Africa. I went to study this in Ethiopia which was quite an experience. So many of the patients died from their infections (many were small children), yet this is really treatable. It is spread by infected clothing lice and so we had to collect these from patient clothing. It was incredible watching how the lice would flee an infected patient because their fever made them too hot for lice, so the lice would spread to uninfected people. This is why it is an epidemic disease as it can spread so easily form one to another.