Molecular evidence for the presence of Rickettsia Felis in the feces of wild-living African apes.
Rickettsia felis is a common emerging pathogen detected in mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa.We hypothesized that, as with malaria, great apes may be exposed to the infectious bite of infected mosquitoes and release R.felis DNA in their feces.We conducted a study of 17 forest sites in Central Africa, testing 1,028 fecal samples from 313 chimpanzees,