|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|
a Department of Preventive Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil b Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Key Words: Rickettsia felis • Ctenocephalides felis felis • Ctenocephalides canis • flea • dog • Brazil
Address for correspondence: Maurício C. Horta, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Prof. Dr. Orlando Marques de Paiva, 87, São Paulo, Brazil, 05508-270. Voice: 55-11-3091-7701; fax: 55-011-3091-7928. e-mail: maurivet{at}yahoo.com
We evaluated the presence of Rickettsia infection among fleas collected on domestic dogs in two Guarani Indian communities in the suburban area of São Paulo Municipality, Brazil. A total of 114 Ctenocephalides felis felis and 47 Ctenocephalides canis were collected from 40 dogs. A total of 41 C. felis felis (36.0%) and 9 C. canis (19.1%) fleas yielded expected bands by PCR, which were all shown by DNA sequencing to be indentical to the corresponding sequence of a fragment of the Rickettsia felis gltA gene deposited in GenBank. The overall prevalence of R. felis was 31.0% (49/161).
|
 |
 |
