File: <rickettsiae.htm> <Medical Index> <General Index> Site Description Glossary <Navigate to Home>

RICKETTSIAE

(Contact)

Please CLICK on underlined links for details:

Ticks and mites all over the world transmit various typhuses in the bacterial genus Rickettsia. Ticks and mites are generally considered to be the main reservoirs of infection along with rodents and other mammals. In 1946 a febrile disease appeared in parts of New York City, which Huebner et al. (1946), named it "Rickettsialpox" and caused by Rickettsia akari. Mice were found to be reservoir hosts of the rickettsia. Dermanyssus sanguineus Hirst was a vector that originally was described from Egypt in 1914, but Ewing (1923) collected it in 1909 in America.

The cosmopolitan rat mite, Liponyssus bacoti transmits a virus disease to humans and animals. This mite has a very short life cycle that takes only about 12 days (Dove & Shelmire 1931).

Service (2008) reported that transovarial and transstadial transmission can occur in tick vectors. Other important kinds of typhus are discussed separately according to the localities where they occur.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Key References: <medvet.ref.htm> <Hexapoda>

Camicas, J. L., J. . Hervy, F. Adam & P. C. Morel. 1998. The ticks of the world (Acarida, Ixodida): Nomenclature, Described Stages, Hosts,

Distribution. Paris: Editions de l'ORSTOM.

CDC. 2005. Tularemia transmitted by insect bites. Wyoming 2001-2003 MMWK Weekly 54(7): 170-3.

Dove, W., E. & B. Shelmire. 1931. Tropical rat mite, Liponyssus bacoti Hirst, vector of endemic typhus. J. Amer. Med. Assoc. 97: 1506-10

Dumler, J. S. & D. H. Walker. 2005. Rocky mountain spotted fever: changing ecology and persisting virulence. New England J. of Medicine

353: 551-53.

Ewing, H. E. 1923. Our only common North American chigger, its distribution and nomenclature. J. Agr. Res. 26: 401-03.

Gammons, M. & G. Salam. 2002. Tick removal. Amer. Fam. Physician 66: 643-45.

Gothe, R., K. Kunze & H. Hoogstraal. 1979. The mechanisms of pathogenicity in the tick paralyses. J. Med. Ent. 16: 357-69.

Hoogstraal, H. 1966. Ticks in relation to human diseases caused by viruses. Ann. Rev. Ent. 11: 261-308.

Hoogstraal, H. 1967. Ticks in relation to human diseases caused by Rickettsia species. Ann. Rev. Ent. 12: 377-420.

Huebner, R. J., W. L. Jellison & C. Pomerantz. 1946. Rickettsial pox. IV. Isolation of a Rickettsia apparently identical with the causative agent

of rickettsial pox. U. S. Pub. Hlth. Repts. 61: 1677-1682.

Lane, R. S., J. Piesman & W. Burgdorfer. 1991. Lyme borreliosis: relation of its causative agent to its vectors and hosts in North America

and Europe. Ann. Rev. Ent. 36: 587-609.

Legner, E. F. 1995. Biological control of Diptera of medical and veterinary importance. J. Vector Ecology 20(1): 59_120.

Legner, E. F. 2000. Biological control of aquatic Diptera. p. 847_870. Contributions to a Manual of Palaearctic Diptera,

Vol. 1, Science Herald, Budapest. 978 p.

Matheson, R. 1950. Medical Entomology. Comstock Publ. Co, Inc. 610 p.

Needham, G. R. & P. D. Teel. 1991. Off-host physiological ecology of ixodid ticks. Ann. Rev. Ent. 36: 313-52.

Parola, P. & D. Raoult. 2001. Tick-borne typhuses. IN: The Encyclopedia of arthropod-transmitted Infections of Man and Domesticated Animals. ed. M. W. Service, Wallingford: CABI: pp. 516-24.

Service, M. 2008. Medical Entomology For Students. Cambridge Univ. Press. 289 p

Sonenshine, D. E., R. S. Lane & W. L. Nicholson. 2002. Ticks (Ixodida). IN: Medical & Veterinary Entomology, ed. G. Mullen & L. Durden,

Ambsterdam Acad. Press. pp 517-58.

Sonenshine, D. E. & T. N. Mather (eds.) 1994. Ecological Dynamics of Tick-Borne Zoonoses. Oxford Univ. Press, New York.

Steer, A., J. Coburn & L. Glickstein. 2005. Lyme borreliosis. IN: Tick-Borne Diseases of Humans, ed. J. L. Goodman, D. T. Dennis & D. E.

Sonenshine. Washington, DC: ASM Press.