Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (M.E. Eremeeva, M.M. Sturgeon, S.E. Karpathy);Hawaii Department of Health, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (W.R. Warashina, A.E. Buchholz, G.K. Olmsted, S.Y. Park, P.V. Effler)
Abstract:
Rickettsia typhi (prevalence 1.9%) and R. felis (prevalence 24.8%) DNA were detected in rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis) collected from mice on Oahu Island, Hawaii. The low prevalence of R. typhi on Oahu suggests that R. felis may be a more common cause of rickettsiosis than R. typhi in Hawaii.