Description of "yaaf", the vesicular fever caused by acute Rickettsia felis infection in Senegal.
Rickettsiosis caused by Rickettsia felis is an emerging infection in Africa and may account for 3-4% of ambulatory febrile fevers. We report herein a case of R. felis infection, for which we propose the name "yaaf", meaning vesicle, in an 8-month-old girl who was diagnosed in the field by real-time PCR analysis of a skin lesion; these PCR analysis was performed at a local experimental point-of-care laboratory. The clinical presentation was polymorphous skin lesions, including papules, vesicles, erosions and ulcers. The patient did not produce antibodies against Rickettsia. We suggest that this disease may be a primary infection caused by R. felis.
URMITE UMR 7278, Aix Marseille Université, Faculté de Médecine, 27 Bd Jean Moulin, 13005 Marseille, France.
Oleg
O
Mediannikov
Florence
F
Fenollar
Hubert
H
Bassene
Adama
A
Tall
Cheikh
C
Sokhna
Jean-François
JF
Trape
Didier
D
Raoult
D000208:Acute Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D012282:Rickettsia Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D041161:Rickettsia felis / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012675:Senegal; D012867:Skin / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology; D017192:Skin Diseases, Bacterial / Q000382:microbiology*