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Spotted fever group rickettsiae are tickborne, obligatory intracellular, gram-negative bacteria with a worldwide distribution. However, the distribution of each species of spotted fever group rickettsiae is limited to geographic areas [...]

Yersinia enterocolitica is an emerging infectious pathogen that has caused wide public health concern since the 1980s. After campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis, yersiniosis ranks third most common among the notifiable bacterial [...]

We isolated Rickettsia japonica from a febrile patient in Lu'an City, China, in 2013. Subsequently, we found an R. japonica seroprevalence of 54.8% (494/902) in the rural population of Anhui Province and an R. japonica prevalence in Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks of 0.5% (5/935). R. japonica and its tick vector exist in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study on the phylogenetic characterization of the VP1 genes of coxsackievirus A16 (CVA16) causing hand-food-mouth disease (HFMD) isolated from Anhui province in 2014. A total of 413 throat swab specimens from HFMD patients were collected during January to November, 2014 for the isolation and identification of enteroviruses using real-time RT-PCR assays. The VP1 regions of CVA16 isolates were amplified using RT-PCR and sequenced. And the phylogenetic tree was constructed among the VP1 regions of those isolates, the different genotypes and sub-genotypes of CVA16 strains. A total of 97 enteroviruses were isolated from 413 samples, the positive rate was 23.49% (97/413), including seventeen CVA16, seventy six HEV71 and four other enteroviruses. The results of the phylogenetic tree showed that 17.CVA16 strains isolated from Anhui in 2014 clustered within B1b evolution branch of B1 genotype. The nucleotide and amino acid sequence identities were 95.30%-100% and 98.70%-100% among the isolates, respectively, but within B1b branch of 17 strains formed several small transmission chains. The nucleotide acid of 17 CVA16 isolates in Anhui province were closed to the strains isolated from Yunnan, Hunan, Guangdong, Tibet and Jiangsu, especially from Hunan in 2013 and from Shenzhen of Guangdong in 2014, the identity were 96.40%-99.70%. The CVA16 strains isolated from Anhui in 2014 were all belong to genetic subtype B1b of B1 genotype was dominant, and among those isolates, several small virus transmission chains had formed with co-circulating and evolution.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease caused by a newly discovered bunyavirus, SFTS virus (SFTSV), and causes high fatality (12% on average and as high as 30%). The objective of this study was to determine whether SFTSV could be transmitted from person to person. We analyzed sera of 13 patients from two clusters of unknown infectious diseases that occurred between September and November of 2006 in Anhui Province of China for SFTSV antibody by indirect immunofluorescence assay and for SFTSV RNA by RT-PCR. We found that all patients (n=14) had typical clinical symptoms of SFTS including fever, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia and all secondary patients in both clusters got sick at 6-13 days after contacting or exposing to blood of index patients. We demonstrated that all patients in cluster 1 including the index patient and nine secondary patients and all three secondary patients in cluster 2 had seroconversion or fourfold increases in antibody titer to SFTSV and/or by RT-PCR amplification of SFTSV RNA from the acute serum. The index patient in cluster 2 was not analyzed because of lack of serum. No person who contacted the index patient during the same period, but were not exposed to the index patient blood, had got illness. We concluded that SFTSV can be transmitted from person to person through contacting patient's blood.