Clustered Cases ofRickettsia sibirica mongolitimonaeInfection, France

Sophie Edouard,Didier Raoult,Bernard Davoust,Philippe Parola,Bernard La Scola,Cristina Socolovschi

doi:10.3201/eid1902.120863

Abstract

Clustered Cases of<i>Rickettsia sibirica mongolitimonae</i>Infection, France

Highlights

Patient 1, a 73-year-old man in France, had fever, rash, lymphadenopathies, and an axillary inoculation eschar in February 2011
DNA from R. massiliae was found in 3 ticks collected from the dog and near the cat litter morphologically identified as Rh. sanguineus
R. massiliae was cultured from an Rh. sanguineus tick, and R. sibirica mongolitimonae was cultured from an Rh. pusillus tick

Summary

Introduction

Patient 1, a 73-year-old man in France, had fever, rash, lymphadenopathies, and an axillary inoculation eschar in February 2011. None of patients reported tick bites, but they were in regular contact with animals, including a cat, a dog, horses, and birds. Both patients who lived with the cat reported that it would return home with ticks. The sequence show 99.7% homology with that of the same gene sequence of R. sibirica mongolitimonae in GenBank Ticks were collected from the property of the 2 patients: from the garden by flagging vegetation [3], from animals, and near the cat litter (Table).

Results

Conclusion