Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus in Hyalommid Ticks, Northeastern Kenya

As part of ongoing arbovirus surveillance, we screened ticks obtained from livestock in northeastern Kenya in 2008 to assess the risk for human exposure to tick-borne viruses. Of 1,144 pools of 8,600 Hyalomma spp. ticks screened for Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus by reverse transcription PCR, 23 pools were infected, demonstrating a potential for human exposure

Comparative scatter plots of Alpha diversity indices of Operational Taxonomic Units at the bacterial order level (a), bacterial genus level (b), and bacterial species level (c).

The three colors represent the tick genus from which they were identified. Note the reduction in richness (Shannon diversity) and an increase in evenness (Simpson diversity) the lower the taxonomic identification level. There is a marked drop in Simpson diversity between the bacterial genus and bacterial species level which coincides with the loss of the Rickettsia genus which could not be speciated.</p

Distribution of OTUs that were classified to the bacterial species level per tick genera.

Distribution of OTUs that were classified to the bacterial species level per tick genera.</p

Map of Sampling Sites, Isiolo County (a) Kwale County (b).

These maps were generated using ArcGIS version 10.2.2 for Desktop (Advanced License) courtesy of Samwel Owaka.</p

Distribution of tick species collected from Isiolo and Kwale counties, individual species collected based on Cytochrome C Oxidase subunit I Identification.

Distribution of tick species collected from Isiolo and Kwale counties, individual species collected based on Cytochrome C Oxidase subunit I Identification.</p

Abundances at the order level (a) and pathogenic bacteria at the genus and species levels (b).

Significance between the bacterial orders was determined using the Kruskal-Wallis test and yielded a p-value of < 0.0001.</p