First detection of human infection with Rickettsia felis in Israel.

摘要

we previously reported in this Journal a case of a 28-year-V V old patient with murine typhus and associated splenic infarction.The diagnosis at the time was based on serocon-version. However, the patient could not recall any exposure to rodents (she was living in a new apartment block and has not recalled ever seeing rats or mice near her home), but she did recall walking barefoot on grass a week before her presentation near some stray kittens. This led us to suspect that she might have been exposed to the cats' fleas and was in fact infected with Rickettsia felis, which sometimes may result in a false-positive serology for murine typhus. At the time, we were not able to differentiate serologically between R felis and R typhi.