Human Rickettsia heilongjiangensis Infection, Japan

EID Journal Home > Volume 16, Number 8–August 2010

Volume 16, Number 8–August 2010
Dispatch
Human Rickettsia heilongjiangensis Infection, Japan
Shuji Ando,1 Masahiro Kurosawa,1 Akiko Sakata, Hiromi Fujita, Katsurou Sakai, Masao Sekine, Masanori Katsumi, Wakana Saitou, Yasuhiro Yano, Nobuhiro Takada, Ai Takano, Hiroki Kawabata, Nozomu Hanaoka, Haruo Watanabe, Ichiro Kurane, and Toshio Kishimoto
National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan (S. Ando, A. Sakata, A. Takano, H. Kawabata, N. Hanaoka, H. Watanabe, I. Kurane, T. Kishimoto); Sendai Medical Center, Sendai, Japan (M. Kurosawa, W. Saitou); Ohara General Hospital, Fukushima, Japan (H. Fujita); Sendai City Institute of Public Health, Sendai (K. Sakai, M. Sekine, M. Katsumi); Fukui University, Fukui, Japan (Y. Yano, N. Takada); and Gifu University, Gifu, Japan (A. Takano, H. Kawabata, H. Watanabe)

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Abstract
A case of Rickettsia heilongjiangensis infection in Japan was identified in a 35-year-old man who had rash, fever, and eschars. Serum contained R. heilongjiangensis antibodies, and eschars contained R. heilongjiangensis DNA. R. heilongjiangensis was also isolated from ticks in the suspected geographic area of infection.

Spotted fever group (SFG) rickettsiosis is the most prevalent arthropod-borne infectious disease in Japan (1). Before publication of a 1984 report about Japanese spotted fever (JSF) caused by Rickettsia japonica, scrub typhus caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi had been known as the sole rickettsiosis in Japan (1). Although many SFG Rickettsia species (R. japonica,R. helvetica,R. tamurae,R. asiatica, and other related Rickettsia spp.) were known, only R. japonica had been isolated or detected by PCR from Japanese SFG rickettsiosis patients (1–3). R. japonica was found in Dermacentor taiwanensis,Haemaphysalis cornigera,H. flava,H. formonensis,H. hystricis,H. longicornis, and Ixodes ovatus ticks, and R. helvetica in H. japonica,I. columnae,I. monospinosus,I. ovatus,I. pavlovskyi,I. persulcatus, and I. turdus ticks (3,4). Cases of SFG rickettsiosis caused by R. heilongjiangensis, showing mild rash associated with fever and an eschar, have been reported in the Russian Far East and the People's Republic of China (5–8). In Russia and China, R. heilongjiangensis was isolated from H. concinna and D. sylvarum ticks (6,7). Highly related Rickettsia spp. were detected from H. longicornis ticks by PCR in South Korea (9). In this study, we confirmed a human case of R. heilongjiangensis infection in Japan. We also isolated R. heilongjiangensis from H. concinna ticks, a probable transmission vector, in the suspected geographic area of infection.

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Suggested Citation for this Article
Ando S, Kurosawa M, Sakata A, Fujita H, Sakai K, Sekine M, et al. Human Rickettsia heilongjiangensis infection, Japan. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2010 Aug [date cited]. http://www.cdc.gov/EID/content/16/8/1306.htm

DOI: 10.3201/eid1608.100049

1These authors contributed equally to this article.