Prevalence data of Rickettsia slovaca and other SFG Rickettsiae species in Dermacentor marginatus in the southeastern Iberian peninsula.

ABSTRACT

In southern Spain, Dermacentor marginatus ticks can be infected with several genospecies of spotted fever Group (SFG) Rickettsia. We developed a nested polymerase chain reaction assay by using a species-specific probe targeting the ompA gene to detect and differentiate between the two groups of rickettsiae previously described in D. marginatus. SFG rickettsia has been detected in 85.15% of ticks studied (26.7% of positives have been to R. slovaca, the causative agent of TIBOLA-DEBONEL, and 73.3% to SFG rickettsia closely related to strains RpA4-JL-02-DnS14-DnS28).