Often Lyme Disease (LD) patients are initially diagnosed with other illnesses, such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The diagnosis of LD should be based on clinical and laboratory data as well as the likelihood of exposure to the LD spirochete. Virtually all LD patients have multiple co-infections. In addition to the Borrelia burgdorferi, the majority of LD patients are also infected with tick-born...

Salmonella spp. are considered to be one of the most common causes of food borne bacterial infections. According to WHO estimates, Salmonella (S.) is responsible for 3 million infections of humans annually (Crump et al. 2004). In Germany 31.185 Salmonella infections were reported to the Robert KochInstitute in 2009. Since the aetiology of enteric infections in many cases is not established and ...

Many bacterial species can be a cause of various heart diseases, such as: Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, Coxiella burnetii and Bartonella spp. The aim of the present studies was to establish if any tick-borne infections can contribute to serious heart disorders resulting in the need for heart transplantation. Myocardium, aortic and mitral valve samples from hearts removed from patients underg...

It is important for the clinician to remember that vector-transmitted bacteria and protozoa have a very long evolutionary history, which spans millions of years. Many vector-borne organisms, such as Anaplasma, Babesia, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, Leishmania and Rickettsia species have an intracellular and intravascular life style, which for certain organisms are obligate in nature. Obviously, this m...

Mosquito borne infectious diseases are among important group of diseases worldwide. Vaccination is available for some tropical mosquito-borne diseases, especially for Japanese encephalitis virus infection and yellow fever. There are also several attempts to develop new vaccines for the other mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue infection and West Nile virus infection. In this article...

Most human extraintestinal Escherichia coli infections, including those involving antimicrobial resistant strains, are caused by the members of a limited number of distinctive E. coli lineages, termed extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC), that have a special ability to cause disease at extraintestinal sites when they exit their usual reservoir in the host's intestinal tract. Multiple line...

The abundance and activity of ectoparasites and its hosts are affected by various abiotic factors, such as climate and other organisms (predators, pathogens and competitors) presenting thus multiples forms of association (obligate to facultative, permanent to intermittent and superficial to subcutaneous) developed during long co-evolving processes. Ticks are ectoparasites widespread globally an...