Serosurvey of antibodies against spotted fever group Rickettsia spp. in horse farms in Northern Paraná, Brazil

Abstract

<jats:p>Brazilian spotted fever (BSF) is an emerging disease most likely caused by Rickettsia rickettsii. The objective of the present study was to estimate the seroprevalence of BSF rickettsia infections in equines from six horse farms located in Londrina County, Paraná, Southern Brazil. Six owners of horse farms situated in Cambé, Santa Fé, Guaraci and Londrina municipalities participated in the study. All farms were located in areas where BSF has not been reported. A total of 273 horses were sampled and their sera were tested by indirect Immunofluorescence assay (IFA) using R. rickettsii and R. parkeri antigens. Titers equal to and greater than 64 were considered positive. Of 273 sera tested, 15 (5.5%) reacted to R. rickettsii and 5 (1.8%) to R. parkeri. Five out of the six farms studied revealed seropositive animals and seropositivity rate ranged from 0 to 13%. The titers ranged from 64 to 512, and four samples had a titer of 512. Nine animals reacted to R. rickettsii with titers four-fold higher than those for R. parkeri. These results suggest that horses in Northern Paraná may have been exposed to rickettsiae identical or closely related to R. rickettsii.</jats:p>

Biodiversity of Potential Vectors of Rickettsiae and Epidemiological Mosaic of Spotted Fever in the State of Paraná, Brazil

“…provide the comparative results needed for effective public health action. In PR, the first confirmed SFR case occurred in 2006 (14), resulting in a number of subsequent studies in the state (51)(52)(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59)(60). The majority of these have provided basic information concerning rickettsia circulation in a given area, with little direct attempt to study case association or use Surveillance System data.…”

Probability of occurrence of the Brazilian spotted fever in northeast of Paraná state, Brazil

“…These other studies indicated positive rates ranging from 5.5 to 38.5% in horses, from 0 to 19.1% in dogs and from 4.7 to 21.0% in humans (BATISTA et al, 2010;FREITAS et al, 2010;OTOMURA et al, 2010;TAMEKUNI et al, 2010;TAMEKUNI et al, 2011;TOLEDO et al, 2011), according to the geographic area. The low prevalence found in this study suggests that dogs and horses are exposed to a small vector population infected by Rickettsiae.…”

Prevalence of zoonotic and non-zoonotic Rickettsia in horses: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Screening by titles and abstracts left 55 studies for full-text review. An assessment of full texts found 27 studies that complied with all eligibility criteria [ 11 , 13 , 15 , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] , [36] , [37] , [38] , [39] , [40] , [41] , [42] , [43] , [44] ]. PRISMA flow diagram summarises the study selection process ( Fig.…”

“…[ 21 ] 2010 Brazil, IFA R. rickettsii 71 6 8.45 Paraná R. parkeri Tamekuni K et al. [ 39 ] 2010 Brazil, IFA R. rickettsii 273 20 7.33 Paraná R. parkeri Silveira I et al. [ 38 ] 2012 Brazil, IFA R. rickettsii 140 35 25.00 Pauliceia R. parkeri R. amblyommii R. bellii Alves A et al.…”