Publications

different genes govern yersinia pestis pathogenicity in caenorhabditis elegans and human lice.	to assess the role of virulence factors identified in caenorhabditis elegans in the transmission of plague by lice, we infected 100 lice by feeding them on rabbits and made them bacteremic; the rabbits had been intravenously inoculated with 10(9) cfu of six different mutant yersinia pestis strains of lower pathogenicity for c. elegans, obtained from the kim5 strain. this strain lacks genes used for biofilm formation. high mortality rates were observed in all lice, which excreted viable bacteria ...	2008	18248948
Bartonella quintana in Ethiopian lice.	Head and clothing lice from Jimma, Ethiopia were investigated for pathogenic bacteria. Genomic DNA from pools of lice was subjected to PCR analysis for Bartonella spp., Borrelia spp. Coxiella burnetii, Rickettsia spp. and Yersinia pestis. All 102 lice pools were negative for the afore mentioned pathogens, with the exception of Bartonella species found among 6 of 65 (9.2%) head lice pools and1 of 33 clothing lice pools. Identification was achieved by sequencing the ribosomal intragenic transcribe ...	2011	22019400
human louse-transmitted infectious diseases.	several of the infectious diseases associated with human lice are life-threatening, including epidemic typhus, relapsing fever, and trench fever, which are caused by rickettsia prowazekii, borrelia recurrentis, and bartonella quintana, respectively. although these diseases have been known for several centuries, they remain a major public health concern in populations living in poor-hygiene conditions because of war, social disruption, severe poverty, or gaps in public health management. poor-hyg ...	2012	22360386
a new clade of african body and head lice infected by bartonella quintana and yersinia pestis-democratic republic of the congo.	the human body louse is known as a vector for the transmission of three serious diseases-specifically, epidemic typhus, trench fever, and relapsing fever caused by rickettsia prowazekii, bartonella quintana, and borrelia recurrentis, respectively-that have killed millions of people. it is also suspected in the transmission of a fourth pathogen, yersinia pestis, which is the etiologic agent of plague. to date, human lice belonging to the genus pediculus have been classified into three mitochondri ...	2015	26392158