Two summer bugs do not make big national news. But doctors say they hit South Texas hard. One spreads through flea bites. The other hides in pool water. Even clean-looking pool water.

Bexar County health workers found 853 cases of flea-borne typhus from 2016 to 2024. Dr. Heather Yun is a San Antonio infectious disease doctor. She sits on the board of a national group of infection doctors. "South Texas is actually really unique for murine typhus," Yun said. "We have this more than any place else really in the world, and we see this every spring and summer as the flea populations here increase."

Flea-borne typhus is also called murine typhus. That is just a medical name for the same sickness. It is not the same as alpha-gal syndrome. Alpha-gal is the tick bite meat allergy. El Tejano covered that in a separate story. Typhus comes from a different bug. It works in a different way.

Fleas pick up the typhus germ from rats. They also get it from opossums, cats, and dogs. The fleas bite people. They leave infected flea droppings on the skin too. Scratching pushes the germ into the body. Texas logged more than 6,700 typhus cases from 2008 to 2023. About 70 percent of those sick people went to the hospital. Fourteen people died.

Symptoms start with fever, headache, and chills. Body aches often follow. Nausea and throwing up can happen too. A rash often shows up five or six days later. It starts on the chest or back. Then it spreads to the arms and legs.

Yun said most South Texas cases follow a simple pattern. Someone feeds stray cats on the porch. A pet cat goes in and out of the house. It rubs against opossums outside. Rats or opossums live under the house. Fleas move in. Then people get bit. "Most of the stories that we encounter with this in South Texas have something to do with feral cats that someone is feeding on their porch, or cats that are going in and out of the house and interacting with opossums, or there's a crawl space under the house where maybe rats and possums go, and then the fleas come in and bite people in the summer," Yun said.

The fix starts at home. Put flea medicine on your pets. Keep it current all summer. Seal up gaps under the house. Do not leave pet food outside at night. That food draws rats and opossums. If you already have rats, treat the fleas first. Do the rat control after. That stops fleas from jumping onto you.

The other risk hides in the water. A germ called cryptosporidium lives in pools. Doctors call it "crypto" for short. It also lives in water parks, rivers, and lakes. Texas sees more than 800 crypto cases a year. San Antonio alone sees about 92 cases a year. Crypto causes watery diarrhea. It can also cause cramps and fever.

Here is the part that shocks people. Crypto can survive normal pool chlorine. A clean pool can still carry the germ. "It doesn't take very much at all. You get one mouthful of the river, and you very well may get cryptosporidium," Yun said.

Doctors say the fix is simple. Do not swallow pool or lake water. Stay out of the water if you have had diarrhea. Wait two full weeks first. Skip rivers and lakes right after heavy rain. Rain can wash farm waste into the water. Shower before you swim. Take young kids on bathroom breaks. Do not let a diaper do the job in the pool.

El Tejano already told you about two other summer bugs. One story covered alpha-gal, the tick meat allergy. Another covered flesh-eating bacteria in Gulf Coast water. Typhus and crypto round out the picture. They do not make national headlines. But local health numbers show they hit South Texas harder than most places.

Metro Health found West Nile virus in three mosquito traps this summer. The best defense against mosquitoes is simple too. Dump out standing water around your house. That is where mosquitoes lay their eggs.