-Like Infection in Goats, Beijing, China.

Abstract

As one of the important tick-borne zoonotic pathogens,has both veterinary and public health significance. Here, we performed a survey ofinfection in the goats from a farm in Beijing, China, and found 44.6% (41/92) were infected with, and 22.8% (21/92) were infected withsp. Thissp. bacterium was close to a recently emergingstrain based onandgene phylogenetic analysis. As to further understand the characteristics ofsp., we raised a couple of positive goats ( = 2) in the laboratory with tick-free settings. We observed inappetence, vomiting, high fever, and weakness of limbs in the goat's offspring ( = 3). In addition, the blood samples from all offspring were all positive of thisspp. We did not see any intracellular morulae in neutrophils, monocytes, and erythrocytes, but we identified some in the platelets of the blood smears from the positive goats by light microscopy. We named itlike and suggested it may infect platelets and be transmitted vertically through the placenta of goats. These findings deserve further evaluation.