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Abstract
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Background: Identifying the underlying causes of skin diseases is often a challenge in dermatology. The scabies mite, Sarcoptes scabiei, is an important, widespread and highly contagious human skin disease. In this article, we describe an outbreak of scabies in a family living in a suburb area of Hamedan in western Iran. Methods: In November 2022, a 21 yo woman was referred to the Arad Medical Laboratory in Hamedan. She complained of incessant itching all over her body, especially at night, for 2 months and after her return from a business trip in Türkiye. She reported that her sister, mother, spouse and colleagues who had accompanied her on the trip had the same symptoms. However, the family’s 5yo male ShihTzu-terrier dog appeared to be healthy. A superficial skin scraping was performed on the patient, her 14 yo sister and her 43yo mother. The samples were cleared in 10% KOH solution and examined microscopically. Results: One adult female S. scabiei was identified in the specimen from the patient, and one S. scabiei egg in skin scrape of the family mother. Discussion: To our knowledge, we report here the second family outbreak of sarcoptic-mange in Iran, the first being an infection of five family members in Esfahan. Application of S. scabiei microsatellite markers, which have been shown to be useful in differentiation of varieties is necessary for determining the origin of infestation.
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