(San Francisco, California) The Bartonella family of bacteria contains different species known to cause a menu of maladies including the painful trench fever seen during World War I and the troublesome "cat scratch fever" which affects 25,000 Americans yearly.
In the latest news, University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) researchers have discovered another member of the Bartonella family.
UCSF researchers have identified a new species of bacteria, similar to the bug that caused trench fever in World War I, in an American tourist who was sickened after a spending three weeks trekking in Peru.So, one gets the straggly-bearded, baked bean bacteria by bug bites. Bummer.
The culprit is a microscopic bacterium resembling a baked bean with a straggly beard. The university scientists have named it Bartonella rochalimae (ro-cha-li-ma-e), after a prominent Brazilian scientist, Henrique da Rocha-Lima, who decades ago identified the bacterium that causes typhus, and named the bacteria that caused trench fever, a painful scourge that immobilized tens of thousands of World War I soldiers.
A team led by Dr. Jane Koehler, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF Medical Center, tracked down the new organism after culturing a blood sample from a 43-year-old woman who came down with a chronic fever two weeks after returning from Peru, her legs covered with bug bites.
Fleas, sandflies and lice are mentioned as culprits. Also, according to Dr. Koehler, people with compromised immune systems, experiencing high and persistent fever, need diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible or they could die. Treatment is dosages of antibiotics.
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