Cross-sectional study of Brucella spp. using real-time PCR from bovine whole blood in Colombia.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in Colombia to recover Brucella spp. DNA from bovine whole-blood samples through probe-based real-time PCR (qPCR). By an SNP-based assay, vaccine strains were differentiated from field strains.

Leptospirosis and rickettsiosis, a diagnostic challenge for febrile syndrome in endemic areas.

This is the case of a 50-year-old male from the region of Urabá, Colombia, with a mixed infection by Rickettsia rickettsii and Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni ST78 and negative test for malaria and dengue fever. The patient presented with febrile syndrome and was unresponsive to systemic antibiotic treatment, who finally died in the intensive care unit. We established the postmortem diagnosis through molecular typification of the two etiological agents.

Fatal Rickettsia rickettsii infection in a child, Northwestern Colombia, 2017.

This report describes a new lethal case of Rickettsia rickettsii infection in a child from Northwestern Colombia, after ten years of the last outbreaks in the same region. Colombian public-health authorities should consider to include this severe rickettsiosis in the compulsory-reporting diseases, with the aim of knowing its burden in the country.