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Volume 15, Number 6—June 2009
Letter

Wohlfahrtiimonas chitiniclastica Bacteremia in Homeless Woman

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To the Editor: In May 2006, a 60-year-old homeless woman with a history of alcoholism was admitted to the emergency department of the Conception Hospital, Marseille, France. Firefighters had just found her in an abandoned container in the outskirts of the city, beside the body of her companion, who had died several days earlier. She described no symptoms other than fatigue. On examination, she was found to be dirty and covered with thousands of body and hair lice; dozens of insect larvae were in her hair. She was mildly febrile (38°C) and had widespread excoriations but no sign of localized bacterial infection. Head shaving exposed superficial ulcers on her scalp but no maggots. Blood analysis showed marked neutropenia (0.44 ×109/L), thrombocytopenia (28 × 109/L), a marked but well-tolerated iron deficiency anemia (hemoglobin 6.8g/dL), and a C-reactive protein level of 182 mg/L. Louse infestation was treated with a single dose of ivermectin (12 mg), and the woman was hospitalized. On day 3, she was still febrile. Louse-borne borreliosis had been ruled out by a negative blood smear, and results of serologic testing and molecular screening of lice for the other 2 louse-transmitted bacteria, Rickettsia prowazekii and Bartonella quintana (1), were negative.

In contrast, 2 cultures of blood taken at the time of admission grew gram-negative rods susceptible to amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, imipenem, ciprofloxacin, amikacin, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. However, phenotypic tests failed to identify this bacterium with accuracy. Intravenous therapy with ceftriaxone at 2 g/d was initiated, and the patient’s fever, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia improved. Scalp wounds healed with local care. Using 16S rRNA gene amplification and sequencing as previously described (2), we identified the bacilli as Wohlfahrtiimonas chitiniclastica and determined its similarity to be 99.5% with strain E43 (GenBank accession no. AJ517825). The 16S rRNA sequence obtained from the patient’s strain was deposited in GenBank under no. EU484335. The strain was deposited in the Collection de Souches de l’Unité des Rickettsies (CSUR; World Data Center for Microorganisms 875, http://ifr48.timone.univ-mrs.fr/portail2/index.php?option = com_content&task = view&id = 96&Itemid = 52) under reference CSUR P16.

W. chitiniclastica is a recently described γ-proteobacterium isolated from larvae of the parasitic fly Wohlfahrtia magnifica (3). Although the pathogenicity of this new species for humans is as yet undescribed, it is phylogenetically close to Ignatzschineria larvae, another bacterium associated with W. magnifica larvae (4), which cause severe wound myiasis in cattle (5). Because of its strong chitinase activity, I. larvae may play a role in the metamorphosis of its host fly, as has been observed for other fly symbionts, and thus may be a symbiont of W. magnifica flies (6). The bacterium was later discovered in swine waste in Quebec (7). In 2007, three publications renewed researchers’ interest in I. larvae. First it was reclassified as the only species within the genus Ignatzschineria (4). Then 2 case reports demonstrated that it plays a role as a human pathogen (8,9). Both described an I. larvae bacteremia in adults with myiasis in southeastern France. The first patient was an elderly farmer with diabetes and myiasis of the leg, scrotum, and anus (8). The second patient was a middle-aged homeless man with a history of alcoholism who also had foot wound myiasis (9).

We report W. chitiniclastica bacteremia also in a homeless woman from southeastern France. Although we did not test body lice for W. chitiniclastica, we believe that the bacteremia originated from the patient’s scalp maggots. Unfortunately, as previously reported for cases of I. larvae bacteremia, the maggots had been rapidly discarded, permitting neither bacterial analysis nor entomologic identification. However, these larvae may have been from W. magnifica flies. These flies are present in southern France, and although they are not typically found at low altitude and in a semiurban environment, their distribution is known to be progressively expanding, in part because of their broad adaptation capacities. Animal hosts for W. magnifica flies are numerous, but humans can also be infected; >10 cases of this myiasis in humans have been reported in Europe, Asia, Morocco, and Egypt. The scalp was affected in 2 of these patients (10).

Among homeless persons, ectoparasitism is very common; body lice (Pediculus humanus humanus) are of particular interest because they transmit 3 bacterial bloodstream infections: trench fever (B. quintana), epidemic typhus (R. prowazekii), and louse-borne relapsing fever (Borrelia recurrentis) (1). Myiasis should also be considered as a relevant type of ectoparasitism in homeless and hygiene-deficient persons. In addition, like body lice, ticks, and fleas, fly larvae should also be regarded as another potential source of specific arthropod-borne bacterial systemic infections.

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Stanislas Rebaudet, Séverine Genot, Aurélie Renvoise, Pierre-Edouard Fournier, and Andreas SteinComments to Author 
Author affiliations: Hôpital Universitaire de la Conception, Marseille, France (S. Rebaudet, S. Genot, A. Stein); Unité des Rickettsies, Marseille (A. Renvoise, P.-E. Fournier, A. Stein)

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References

  1. Brouqui  P, Stein  A, Dupont  HT, Gallian  P, Badiaga  S, Rolain  JM, Ectoparasitism and vector-borne diseases in 930 homeless people from Marseilles. Medicine (Baltimore). 2005;84:618. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  2. Drancourt  M, Raoult  D. Sequence-based identification of new bacteria: a proposition for creation of an orphan bacterium repository. J Clin Microbiol. 2005;43:43115. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  3. Toth  EM, Schumann  P, Borsodi  AK, Keki  Z, Kovacs  AL, Marialigeti  K. Wohlfahrtiimonas chitiniclastica gen. nov., sp. nov., a new gammaproteobacterium isolated from Wohlfahrtia magnifica (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2008;58:97681. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  4. Tóth  EM, Borsodi  AK, Euzéby  JP, Tindall  BJ, Márialigeti  K. Proposal to replace the illegitimate genus name Schineria Toth et al. 2001 with the genus name Ignatzschineria gen. nov. and to replace the illegitimate combination Schineria larvae Toth et al. 2001 with Ignatzschineria larvae comb. nov. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2007;57:17980. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  5. Tóth  EM, Farkas  R, Marialigeti  K, Mokhtar  IS. Bacteriological investigations on wound myiasis of sheep caused by Wohlfahrtia magnifica (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). Acta Vet Hung. 1998;46:21929.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  6. Tóth  EM, Kovacs  G, Schumann  P, Kovacs  AL, Steiner  U, Halbritter  A, Schineria larvae gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from the 1st and 2nd larval stages of Wohlfahrtia magnifica (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2001;51:4017.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  7. Juteau  P, Tremblay  D, Ould-Moulaye  CB, Bisaillon  JG, Beaudet  R. Swine waste treatment by self-heating aerobic thermophilic bioreactors. Water Res. 2004;38:53946. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  8. Maurin  M, Delbano  JN, Mackaya  L, Colomb  H, Guier  C, Mandjee  A, Human infection with Schineria larvae. Emerg Infect Dis. 2007;13:6579.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  9. Roudiere  L, Jean-Pierre  H, Comte  C, Zorgniotti  I, Marchandin  H, Jumas-Bilak  E. Isolation of Schineria sp. from a man. Emerg Infect Dis. 2007;13:65961.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  10. Kokcam  I, Saki  CE. A case of cutaneous myiasis caused by Wohlfahrtia magnifica. J Dermatol. 2005;32:45963.PubMedGoogle Scholar

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Cite This Article

DOI: 10.3201/eid1506.080232

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Please use the form below to submit correspondence to the authors or contact them at the following address:

Andreas Stein, Unité des Rickettsies, CNRS-IRD UMR6236, Université de la Méditerranee, Faculte de Medecine, 27 blvd Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille CEDEX 5, France

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Page created: December 08, 2010
Page updated: December 08, 2010
Page reviewed: December 08, 2010
The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions. Use of trade names is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by any of the groups named above.
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