Background: Rickettsial infections are a most common cause of acute febrile illness worldwide. An intensified surveillance and diagnostic analysis lead to know more information of the disease epidemiology, which helps for forethought and enlargement of relevant control/preventive measures against Rickettsial infections.

Materials and Methods: A prospective descriptive study was conducted during the period of January 2023 to December 2023, by screening suspected Rickettsial fever patients attending Private Medical College and Hospital (Bangalore District, Karnataka, India) to brief the immensity of Rickettsial burden, the history of this disease in terms of clinical symptoms and outcome of the infections in the hospitalized Rickettsial patients. The blood samples of suspected patients were tested for Rickettsia genus specific primer and differentiation of scrub typhus group, typhus group and spotted fever group rickettsiae using 47 kDa, gltA and ompB gene using in house real-time PCR with HRM technique. The clinical case definition by World Health Organization was adopted to categorize the Rickettsial cases.

Results: The total enrolment of samples screened in the study was 421, out of which 41 (9.73%) were detected positive for Rickettsial PCR. By rickettsial PCR typing evaluation, spotted fever group was diagnosed in 19 (46.34%) patients, 12(29.26%) had typhus group and 10 (24.39%) patients had scrub typhus group. Though (spotted fever group, typhus group & scrub typhus group) was present in 41 patients, all the patients in this study were recovered well.

Conclusion: In developing countries like India, building of laboratories with advanced capability for diagnosis and combat-mode ready preparedness for the management of Rickettsial cases in emergency situation may reduce Rickettsial -related mortality.