D. Guberman et al., PREVALENCE OF SPOTTED-FEVER GROUP RICKETTSIAE IN TICKS FROM SOUTHERN ISRAEL, Journal of medical entomology, 33(6), 1996, pp. 979-982
The prevalence of spotted fever group rickettsiae was studied in quest
ing ticks collected from southern Israel. Ticks were examined from an
agricultural settlement (kibbutz Ze'elim), an endemic site for Mediter
ranean spotted fever, and from another kibbutz (Re'im) in an adjacent
area where the disease has not been reported. Ticks were collected by
flagging and CO2 traps from vegetation inside and outside the settleme
nts during 1989/1990 and 1994. In Ze'elim, 98% of the ticks collected
were brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus (Latreille), whereas in
Re'im the predominant species was Rhipicephalus turanicus Pomerantzev
(84.6%), with 11.8% of the ticks R. sanguineus and 3.6% Hyalomma excav
atum Koch. The presence of rickettsiae in the hemolymph of the ticks w
as demonstrated by immunofluorescence using polyclonal antibodies made
against the human pathogenic Moroccan strain of Rickettsia conorii. O
f 549 ticks examined in 1989/1990 from Ze'elim, 7.3% were positive for
spotted group rickettsiae, and in Re'im 2.2% of 156 R. turanicus were
positive. In 1994, 51 out of 186 (27.4%) ticks in Ze'elim and 3 out o
f 115 (2.6%) ticks in Re'im were positive. All 20 specimens of H. exca
vatum were negative for spotted fever group rickettsiae. To our knowle
dge, this is the 1st report of spotted fever group rickettsiae in R. t
uranicus from Israel.