typhus

They can also help spread murine typhus and food-borne germs like salmonella.

Poorly dressed and malnourished, they faced lethal diseases like dysentery, smallpox, and typhus—epidemics typical in army camps where basic sanitation was poor and drinking water carried deadly germs.

Flea-borne typhus was tied to three deaths in Los Angeles County last year amid a rise in reported cases of the illness, according to a report released Thursday.

From its base in Japanese-controlled Harbin in China, Unit 731 and related units injected war prisoners with typhus, cholera and other diseases as research into germ warfare, according to historians and former unit members.

Before the squadron even got across the Atlantic Ocean, though, typhus hit.