Mycobacterium microti: more widespread than previously thought.

Mycobacterium microti typically causes disease in voles, wood mice, and shrews (6). Only rarely has this bacterium been isolated from other animals, among which are a llama, cats, pigs, a rock hyrax, and a ferret (2, 4, 5). Recently, M. microti isolates from different sources were characterized by using novel genetic markers (5), and this study for the first time disclosed four cases of M. microti infections in humans in The Netherlands. Here we describe the finding of additional M. microti infections in animals and a human in the United Kingdom (UK) that were identified by spoligotyping (3). In the framework of a European Union project on the development of novel standardized methodology for the identification of and nomenclature for Mycobacterium bovis, spoli-