Japanese spotted fever, a tickborne disease caused by
Rickettsia japonica, has been reported in Japan, Korea, and China (1-3).
ticks (Ixodida: Ixodidae) are needed to detect the presence of
Rickettsia (Rickettsiales: Rickettsiaceae)?
[4] There are currently three groups of diseases commonly identified as rickettsioses: (i) spotted fever group (SFG) and typhus group (TG) rickettsial infections; (ii) scrub typhus, associated with Orientia tsutsugamushi (formerly
Rickettsia tsutsugamushi); and (iii) human ehrlichioses and anaplasmosis caused by pathogens in the family Anaplasmataceae.
Rickettsia diseases are caused by small intracellular Gram-negative rod-shaped bacteria that are members of the order Rickettsiales and family Rickettsiaceae in the Proteobacteria [alpha]-subdivision (RAOULT & ROUX, 1997; DUMLER et al., 2001).
Because
Rickettsia is an intracellular pathogen, in vitro culture (typically cell culture) is complex (Fryer & Lannan 1994).
Because of this, very little is known about the transmission dynamics of
Rickettsia species in rural areas of Yucatan.
DETECTION OF
RICKETTSIA RICKETTSII BRUMPT (RICKETTSIALES: RICKETTSIACEAE) IN THE BROWN DOG TICK RHIPICEPHALUS SANGUINEUS LATREILLE (IXODIDA: IXODIDAE) IN THE COMARCA LAGUNERA, A REEMERGENT SPOTTED FEVER ZONE IN MEXICO
The Gram-negative
Rickettsia bacteria are arthropod vector-borne and worldwide distributed [13, 14].
Besides primary endosymbionts, white fly harbors secondary endosymbionts namely Hamiltonella (Zchori-Fein and Brown, 2002),
Rickettsia (Gottlieb et al., 2006), Cardinium (Zchori-Fein and Perlman, 2004), Fritschea (Everett et al., 2005), Arsenophonus (Baumann et al., 2004) and Wolbachia (Skaljac et al., 2010; Tram et al., 2003).
Rickettsiae and related ehrlichial organisms are obligate intracellular bacteria carried by mites, fleas, ticks, and lice and are the agents of numerous tick-borne diseases found in Virginia, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever (
Rickettsia rickettsii), Tidewater spotted fever (
Rickettsia parkeri), Human monotropic ehrlichiosis (Ehrlichia chaffeensis), and Ewingii ehrlichiosis (Ehrlichia ewingii).
Rickettsia bacteria are spread to people and pets through the bite of an infected tick.
During 2012-2014, five cases of
Rickettsia parkeri rickettsiosis were identified by a single urgent care practice in Georgia, located approximately 40 miles southwest of Atlanta.