Melioidosis, northeastern Brazil

Abstract

Melioidosis was first recognized in northeastern Brazil in 2003. Confirmation of additional cases from the 2003 cluster in Ceará, more recent cases in other districts, environmental isolation of Burkholderia pseudomallei, molecular confirmation and typing results, and positive serosurveillance specimens indicate that melioidosis is more widespread in northeastern Brazil than previously thought.

Figure A1

Molecular typing results for Burkholderia pseudomallei isolates from Brazil compared with Western Australian and reference isolates. The Unweighted Pair Group Method using arithmetic averages dendrogram on the left refers to the EcoR1 ribotype patterns in the center. XbaI DNA macrorestriction (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, PFGE) patterns are shown at the right of the corresponding ribotypes for comparison. The ribotypes and PFGE types are each numbered from the first lane at the top of the figure, increasing by one for each new type. PFGE types were allocated numbers independently of ribotypes.