title: Antibody prevalence of Orientia tsutsugamushi, Rickettsia typhi and TT118 spotted fever group rickettsiae among Malaysian blood donors and febrile patients in the urban areas.
abstract: The seroprevalence of Orientia tsutsugamushi (OT), Rickettsia typhi (RT) and TT118 spotted fever group rickettsiae (SFGR) among blood donors and febrile Malaysian patients in the urban areas was determined. Of the 240 blood donors, 5.4%, 9.2% and 1.7% had either present or previous exposure to OT, RT and SFG rickettsiae, respectively. Patients admitted to an urban hospital had high seroprevalences of OT (43.5%) and RT (22.9%), as compared to SFGR (11.6%). Antibody levels suggestive of recent infections of scrub typhus, murine typhus and tick typhus were detected in 16.8%, 12.7% and 8.2% of patients respectively. No significant difference was noted in the distribution of rickettsial antibodies among urban patients from 2 geographical locations. However, the serologic patterns of rickettsial infection in the urban areas were different form those of rural areas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Malaysia. tayst@ummc.edu.my
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Tay
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kamalanathan
authors.forename: M Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Rohani
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D001782:Blood Donors; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005334:Fever / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008296:Malaysia / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012285:Orientia tsutsugamushi / Q000276:immunology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012282:Rickettsia Infections / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D012286:Rickettsia typhi / Q000276:immunology*; D012612:Scrub Typhus / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial