Prevalence of Rickettsia felis in the fleas Ctenocephalides felis felis and Ctenocephalides canis from two Indian villages in Sao Paulo Municipality, Brazil.
We evaluated the presence of Rickettsia infection among fleas collected on domestic dogs in two Guarani Indian communities in the suburban area of São Paulo Municipality, Brazil. A total of 114 Ctenocephalides felis felis and 47 Ctenocephalides canis were collected from 40 dogs. A total of 41 C. felis felis (36.0%) and 9 C. canis (19.1%) fleas yielded expected bands by PCR, which were all shown by DNA sequencing to be indentical to the corresponding sequence of a fragment of the Rickettsia felis gltA gene deposited in GenBank. The overall prevalence of R. felis was 31.0% (49/161).
Horta
Mauricio C
MC
Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Prof. Dr. Orlando Marques de Paiva, 87, São Paulo, Brazil, 05508-270. maurivet@yahoo.com
Chiebao
Daniela P
DP
de Souza
Daniele B
DB
Ferreira
Fernando
F
Pinheiro
Sônia R
SR
Labruna
Macelo B
MB
Schumaker
Teresinha T S
TT
D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil; D004285:Dogs / Q000469:parasitology; D006801:Humans; D041161:Rickettsia felis / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012424:Rural Population; D005423:Siphonaptera / Q000382:microbiology*