Tick-borne lymphadenopathy-like condition in an African woman in Kenya

Abstract

Ticks are considered to be second worldwide to mosquitoes as vectors of human diseases, while in livestock industry, ticks and tick-borne diseases (TandTBDs) and emanating secondary infections adversely impede its development particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia.[1,2,3] Wildlife,[4] domestic animals[2] and humans[5] are equally affected. However, the extend of the severity of the effects of the emerging and re-emerging ticks and tick-borne pathogens to their respective hosts remains considerably unknown due to unavailable data (as a result of unreported, undisclosed and unevaluated existing and potential cases). Since ticks are associated with domestic animals and wildlife more than humans, the worst of this unknown situation is the effects of ticks and tick-borne pathogens on humanity. Tick-borne lymphadenopathy is one of the most recently known health conditions in human history, whose epidemiology, biology, sociology, economics and prognosis are poorly understood in health industry. The condition is characterized by lymphadenopathy and a rash and may either be one of the tick-borne conditions that might have gone unnoticed in human population or may be an emerging condition in the drastically changing world of complex vector-pathogen-host interfaces.[6] Nevertheless, lymphadenopathy and a rash per se, are recognized as symptoms and signs of many tropical diseases, of which bites from infected and non-infected tick species are. This condition was first described in 1997 in a female patient in France and its causative agent, bacterium, Rickettsia slovaca Sekeyová et al., 1998, is transmitted by Dermacentor Koch, 1844 ticks[7] while Rickettsia raoultii Mediannikov et al., 2008, causing the same condition was confirmed recently in Dermacentor marginatus Sulzer, 1776 ticks in Tuscany, Italy.[8] Although Dermacentor spp. are found in Kenya, little is known about the full continuum of rickettsial infections, which are variously reported as Kenya fever, Kenya typhus, Kenya tick fever and/or Kenya tick typhus with symptoms ranging from headache and nausea to muscle, back and joint pain with no skin rash.[1]