Evidence of Bartonella spp., Rickettsia spp. and Anaplasma phagocytophilum in domestic, shelter and stray cat blood and fleas, Portugal.

• Autor(a) principal: Alves, A.S.
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Milhano, N, Santos-Silva, M, Santos, A.S., Vilhena, M, De Sousa, R
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10174/13975; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-0691.2008.02636.x
• topic: fleas; cat; Bartonella spp; Rickettsia; A. phagocytophilum; public health

Thirty-two fleas were collected from 18 Lisboncats, 29 of which (90.6%) were C. felis, one (3.1%)was C. canis and two (6.3%) were unidentifiable. Only C. felis fleas were infected, six (40.0%)withB. clarridgeiae and six (40.0% ) with R. felis; three(20.0%) were co-infected. No positive result wasfound for A. phagocytophilum. The infection prev-alence of B. clarridgeiae was higher in domestic(43.8%) than in shelter cat fleas (28.6%). However,the infection rate of R. felis was higher in shelter(42.9%) than in domestic cat fleas (25.0%). Straycat fleas were only infected with R. felis (11.1%).Twenty-five cats (67.7%) were bacteraemic(Table 1). Twenty-one of them (84.0%) wereless than 1 year old, 15 (60.0%) were femalea nd 10 (40.0%) had no Bartonella spp. antibodies, one of which (10.0%) was more than 1 year old. The prevalence of Bartonella bacteraemia is higher in shelter (76.9%) than in domestic cats(68.2%) and all stray cats tested (n = 2) were positive.