Bartonella rochalimae
| Bartonella rochalimae
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| Bartonella rochalimae Eremeeva et al., 2007 |
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Bartonella rochalimae is a recently discovered strain of Gram-negative bacteria in the Bartonella genus, isolated by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco|University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), Massachusetts General Hospital, and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[2] The bacterium is a close relative of Bartonella quintana, the microbe which caused trench fever in thousands of soldiers during World War I.[3] Named after Brazilian scientist Henrique da Rocha Lima,[4] B. rochalimae is also closely related to Bartonella henselae, a bacterium identified in the mid-1990s during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco as the cause of Cat scratch fever, which still infects more than 24,000 people in the United States each year.[5]
Scientists discovered the bacterium in a 43-year-old American woman who had traveled to Peru for three weeks.[3][1] She suffered from possibly life-threatening anemia, an enlarged spleen, a 102 degree Fahrenheit (39 degree Celsius) fever, and insomnia two weeks after returning to the United States,[6] symptoms akin to those of typhoid fever and malaria.[5] The patient's sickness was first attributed to Bartonella bacilliformis, a known related species with a similar appearance under a microscope that is spread by sand flies and infects 10% of the human population in some regions of Peru with Oroya fever. Antibiotic treatment based on this diagnosis rapidly cured her infection, but further investigation proved the bacteria were of a formerly unknown species. It is possible that other cases diagnosed as Oroya fever result from this species.[2]
The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 7, 2007.[1] According to the senior author of the paper, Marryan Gaal, professor of infectious diseases at UCSF, the new discovery is the sixth identified Bartonella species that can infect humans.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Eremeeva ME, Gerns HL, Lydy SL; et al. (2007). "Bacteremia, fever, and splenomegaly caused by a newly recognized bartonella species". N. Engl. J. Med. 356 (23): 2381–7. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa065987. PMID 17554119. Unknown parameter
|month=ignored (help) - ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ravven, Wallace (2007-06-06). "New bacterium discovered — related to cause of trench fever". University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "US scientists discover new, potentially deadly bacteria". Agence France-Presse. 2007-06-07. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
- ↑ Smith, Michael (2007-06-07). "Mystery Fever Leads to New Pathogen From Peru". MedPage Today. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Russell, Sabin (2007-06-07). "Peru trekker's mystery bug is new to science". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
- ↑ Hubbard, Sylvia (2007-06-08). "New, Possibly Deadly Bacteria Discovered". NewsMax.com. Retrieved 2007-06-08.