Las rickettsiasis en Guatemala

Abstract

With the results of more than a thousand complement fixation tests in which epidemic and murine antigens prepared by the Army Medical School of Washington were used, and with due control of the tests, it may be inferred that typhus in Guatemala is of the epidemic type in more than 95 per cent of the cases and in the remainder murine or endemic. Constant and significant agglutinations were obtained only with Proteus OX19. OX2 and OXL strains do not agglutinate with the sera of the abovementioned cases. No cross-agglutinations have ever been obtained with brucellas. A positive complement fixation test was found in one case with a history of typhus 35 years before. For any investigations of rickettsial infection, it seems essential to combine use of the Weil-Felix and the complement fixation tests. The development of both reactions is almost simultaneous during the first week in which the symptoms appear. Several tables and one map are included to show the distribution, incidence and mortality of typhus in Guatemala in 1934-1944(AU)