Molecular and clinical evidence of Ehrlichia chaffeensis infection in Cameroonian patients with undifferentiated febrile illness.

ABSTRACT: In the U.S.A., human monocytotropic ehrlichiosis (HME) caused by Ehrlichia chaffeensis is an emerging tick-transmitted zoonosis. In Cameroon, where E. canis, E. chaffeensis and E. ewingii have recently been detected in dogs and/or ticks (Rhipicephalus sanguineus), the potential exists for human infections. Patients from the coastal region of Cameroon who had acute fevers of unknown aetiology were therefore checked for ehrlichial infection, using a real-time PCR that amplifies part of a genus-specific gene (dsb) that codes for a disulphide-bond formation protein. Ehrlichial blood was detected in the peripheral blood from 12 (10%) of the 118 patients investigated by PCR. When the 12 amplicons from the positive cases were sequenced, they were found to be identical to each other and to the cor

SUBMITTER: Ndip LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2913319 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature