ObjectiveTo study the presence of Bartonella bacilliformis in ticks collected from two wild mammals in Madre de Dios, Peru.ResultsA total of 110 ticks were collected. Among the 43 Amblyomma spp. extracted from the 3 Tapirus terrestris only 3 were positive for B. bacilliformis. In addition, 12 out of the 67 Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus obtained from the 3 Pecari tajacu were positive for B. bacilliformis. For the first time B. bacilliformis have been detected in arthropods other than Lutzomyia spp. Further studies are required to elucidate the possible role of ticks in the spread of South American Bartonellosis.

Bartonella bacilliformis is the etiological agent of Carrion’s disease, a neglected tropical poverty-linked illness. This infection is endemic of Andean regions and it is estimated that approximately 1.7 million of South Americans are at risk. This bacterium is a fastidious slow growing microorganism, which is difficult and cumbersome to isolate from clinical sources, thereby hindering the availability of phylogenetic relationship of clinical samples. The aim of this study was to perform Multi Locus Sequence Typing of B. bacilliformis directly in blood from patients diagnosed with Oroya fever during an outbreak in Northern Peru.

Bartonella bacilliformis is the etiological agent of Carrion’s disease, a neglected tropical poverty-linked illness. This infection is endemic of Andean regions and it is estimated that approximately 1.7 million of South Americans are at risk. This bacterium is a fastidious slow growing microorganism, which is difficult and cumbersome to isolate from clinical sources, thereby hindering the availability of phylogenetic relationship of clinical samples. The aim of this study was to perform Multi Locus Sequence Typing of B. bacilliformis directly in blood from patients diagnosed with Oroya fever during an outbreak in Northern Peru.

Bartonella bacilliformis is a facultative, intracellular, aerobic, Gram-negative coccobacillus causing the so-called Carrión's disease, a human infection endemic to specific areas mainly inhabited by low-income communities of Peru but also present in other Andean communities. It is considered a truly neglected tropical disease and is transmitted through the bite of female sandflies of the genus Lutzomyia.

The study was supported by the Programa Nacional de Innovaci?n para la Competitividad y Productividad (Inn?vate Per?), under the contract 117-PNICP-PIAP-2015. J.R. had a fellowship from the program I3, of the ISCIII [grant number: CES11/012]. C.G. had a PhD fellowship of the ISCIII [FI12/00561] and was recipient of a Canon Foundation Fellowship and a Small Grant from the Royal Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene [grant reference 000584]. MJP had a postdoctoral fellowship from CONCYTEC/FONDECYT [grant number: CG05-2013-FONDECYT].

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is a cytoplasmic enzyme with an important function in cell oxidative damage prevention. Erythrocytes have a predisposition towards oxidized environments due to their lack of mitochondria, giving G6PD a major role in its stability. G6PD deficiency (G6PDd) is the most common enzyme deficiency in humans; it affects approximately 400 million individuals worldwide. The overall G6PDd allele frequency across malaria endemic countries is estimated to be 8%, corresponding to approximately 220 million males and 133 million females. However, there are no reports on the prevalence of G6PDd in Andean communities where bartonellosis is prevalent.

BackgroundThe aim of the investigation was to determine the risk factors for human fascioliasis in schoolchildren in five localities of the Baños del Inca district in Cajamarca, Peru. Secondarily, the prevalence of infection among this population was also studied.MethodsA questionnaire was applied to 270 schoolchildren from 6–12 years of age and to their parents with the aim of collecting information related to risk factors predisposing the children to Fasciola hepatica infection. Faecal samples from all the children were tested for F. hepatica using the modified rapid sedimentation method of Lumbreras and the technique of Kato–Katz for egg counts.ResultsRisk factors were identified as follows—raising cattle, consumption of radishes and chewing grass. The prevalence of F. hepatica in Baños del Inca was 6.30%; there was no significant difference by sex or age.ConclusionRisk factor...

The implementation of molecular and serological tests has led a great decline in transfusion-transmitted infections. Unfortunately, however, this has only occurred in high-income countries, whereas the scenario is different in low-income countries and in rural areas of middle-income countries, in which access to serological tests is sometimes not feasible or limited by economic factors. These factors result in a population that is more vulnerable and at increased risk of infections. Although the search for relevant pathogens that can be transmitted by blood transfusion is implemented worldwide, various pathogens that can be present in blood bank donations remain under studied, as in the case of some bacteria such as Leptospira spp. and Bartonella spp. Bartonella species are re-emerging blood-borne organisms, capable of causing prolonged infections in animals and humans, while leptospiros...

Analysis of immune responses in Bartonella bacilliformis carriers are needed to understand acquisition of immunity to Carrion’s disease and may allow identifying biomarkers associated with bacterial infection and disease phases. Serum samples from 144 healthy subjects from 5 villages in the North of Peru collected in 2014 were analyzed. Four villages had a Carrion’s disease outbreak in 2013, and the other is a traditionally endemic area. Thirty cytokines, chemokines and growth factors were determined in sera by fluorescent bead-based quantitative suspension array technology, and analyzed in relation to available data on bacteremia quantified by RT-PCR, and IgM and IgG levels measured by ELISA against B. bacilliformis lysates. The presence of bacteremia was associated with low concentrations of HGF (p = 0.005), IL-15 (p = 0.002), IL-6 (p = 0.05), IP-10 (p = 0.008), MIG (p = 0.03) and ...

Objective: To report an outbreak of ZIKV infection among asymptomatic pregnant women during 2016 in the city of Jaen, Cajamarca.

This study aimed to identify new B. bacilliformis antigenic candidates that could lead to a new diagnostic tool able to be implemented in endemic rural areas. RT-PCR and the high levels of positivity for specific ELISAs demonstrate high levels of B. bacilliformis exposure and asymptomatic carriers among inhabitants. The new antigens identified might be used as a new rapid diagnostic tool to diagnose acute Carrion’s disease and identify asymptomatic carriers.

Fascioliasis is a worldwide emerging snail-borne zoonotic trematodiasis with a great spreading capacity linked to animal and human movements, climate change, and anthropogenic modifications of freshwater environments. South America is the continent with more human endemic areas caused by Fasciola hepatica, mainly in high altitude areas of Andean regions. The Peruvian Cajamarca area presents the highest human prevalences reported, only lower than those in the Bolivian Altiplano. Sequencing of the complete rDNA ITS-2 allowed for the specific and haplotype classification of lymnaeid snails collected in seasonal field surveys along a transect including 2007–3473 m altitudes. The species Galba truncatula (one haplotype preferentially in higher altitudes) and Pseudosuccinea columella (one haplotype in an isolated population), and the non-transmitting species Lymnaea schirazensis (two haploty...

Objective: This study investigated an outbreak of Bartonellosis in a coastal region in Peru.Results: A total of 70 (n = 70) samples with clinical criteria for the acute phase of Bartonellosis and a positive peripheral blood smear were included. 22.85% (n = 16) cases of the samples were positive for Bartonella bacilliformis by PCR and automatic sequencing. Of those positive samples, 62.5% (n = 10) cases were positive only for B. bacilliformis and 37.5% (n = 6) cases were positive to both Mycobacterium spp. and B. bacilliformis. The symptom frequencies were similar in patients diagnosed with Carrion's disease and those co-infected with Mycobacterium spp. The most common symptoms were headaches, followed by malaise and arthralgia.

Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii is the top-ranked pathogen in the World Health Organization priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It emerged as a global pathogen due to the successful expansion of a few epidemic lineages, or international clones (ICs), producing acquired class D carbapenemases (OXA-type). During the past decade, however, reports regarding IC-I isolates in Latin America are scarce and are non-existent for IC-II and IC-III isolates. This study evaluates the molecular mechanisms of carbapenem resistance and the epidemiology of 80 non-duplicate clinical samples of A. baumannii collected from February 2014 through April 2016 at two tertiary care hospitals in Lima. Almost all isolates were carbapenem-resistant (97.5%), and susceptibility only remained high for colistin (95%). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis showed two main clusters spread between both h...

We report the first case of Myroides phaeus isolated from blood, causing bacteremia in an immunocompromised patient using the automated MicroScan Walk Away 96 system, followed by bacterial identification by amplification-sequencing of the 16S rDNA. The sequences obtained were compared with the reference sequence of the BLAST ® platform - National Library of Medicine, USA, and the isolation was identified as Myroides phaeus strain with 99.67 % identity in Blast report. In the literature we did not find previous reported cases of infections by this bacterium, however its pathogenic role is still controversial; therefore, this isolation alerts us to carry out an exhaustive surveillance of other possible acquisition routes.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado.

Objective: To evaluate the frequency of infection caused by the Oropouche virus (OROV) in 496 patients with acute febrile disease (AFI), whose samples were obtained for the analysis of endemic arboviruses in a previous investigation carried out in 2016. Results: OROV was detected in 26.4% (131/496) of serum samples from patients with AFI. Co-infections with Dengue virus (7.3%), Zika virus (1.8%) and Chikungunya (0.2%) were observed. The most common clinical symptoms reported among the patients with OROV infections were headache 85.5% (112/131), myalgia 80.9% (106/131), arthralgia 72.5% (95/131) and loss of appetite 67.9% (89/131). Headache and myalgia were predominant in all age groups. Both OROV infections and co-infections were more frequent in May, June and July corresponding to the dry season of the region. © 2020 The Author(s).

Background: The infection caused by Mayaro virus (MAYV), which presents as an acute febrile illness, is considered a neglected tropical disease. The virus is an endemic and emerging pathogen in South America and the Caribbean, responsible for occasional and poorly characterized outbreaks. Currently there is limited information about its expansion and risk areas. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in 10 urban primary care health centers in the Cajamarca region of Peru from January to June 2017. A total of 359 patients with suspected febrile illness were assessed. RNA was extracted from serum samples, following which MAYV real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) for the detection of the nsP1 gene was performed. Results: MAYV was detected in 11.1% (40/359) of samples after RT-PCR amplification and confirmatory DNA sequencing. Most infections were detected in the adult popula...

Oropouche fever is an under-reported and emerging infectious disease caused by Oropouche virus (OROV). Its incidence is under-estimated mainly due to clinical similarities with other endemic arboviral diseases and the lack of specific diagnostic tests. We report the first outbreak of Oropouche fever in a western region of the Peruvian Amazon in Huanuco, Peru.

Acute febrile illness (AFI) represent a significant health challenge in the Peruvian Amazon basin population due to their diverse etiologies and the unavailability of specific on-site diagnostic methods, resulting in underreporting of cases. In Peru, one of the most endemic regions to dengue and leptospirosis is Madre de Dios, a region also endemic to emergent bacterial etiologic agents of AFI, such as bartonellosis and rickettsiosis, whose prevalence is usually underreported.We aimed to molecularly identify the presence of Leptospira spp., Bartonella bacilliformis, and Rickettsia spp. by Polymerase Chain Reaction in serum samples from patients with AFI from Puerto Maldonado-Madre de Dios in Peru.