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. 2014 Aug;91(2):294-301.
doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.13-0707. Epub 2014 Jun 16.

Detection of Bartonella quintana in African body and head lice

Abdoul Karim Sangaré  1 , Amina Boutellis  1 , Rezak Drali  1 , Cristina Socolovschi  1 , Stephen C Barker  1 , Georges Diatta  1 , Christophe Rogier  1 , Marie-Marie Olive  1 , Ogobara K Doumbo  1 , Didier Raoult  2
Affiliations

Detection of Bartonella quintana in African body and head lice

Abdoul Karim Sangaré et al. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2014 Aug.

Abstract

Currently, the body louse is the only recognized vector of Bartonella quintana, an organism that causes trench fever. In this work, we investigated the prevalence of this bacterium in human lice in different African countries. We tested 616 head lice and 424 body lice from nine African countries using real-time polymerase chain reaction targeting intergenic spacer region 2 and specific B. quintana genes. Overall, B. quintana DNA was found in 54% and 2% of body and head lice, respectively. Our results also show that there are more body lice positive for B. quintana in poor countries, which was determined by the gross domestic product, than in wealthy areas (228/403 versus 0/21, P < 0.001). A similar finding was obtained for head lice (8/226 versus 2/390, P = 0.007). Our findings suggest that head lice in Africa may be infected by B. quintana when patients live in poor economic conditions and are also exposed to body lice.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Map of Africa showing the prevalence of B. quintana in head and body lice collected in the various study areas during 1999–2012.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Phenotypes of head and body lice collected from African countries during 1999–2012 (Head lice: A, B and C; Body lice: D, E, F and G).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Phylogenetic tree of lice based on the Cytb (using the ML method with 100 bootstrap replicates).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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