Revised June 20, 2022 Reviewed for currency November 8, 2020 The administration of antibiotics can be complicated by a number of unintended consequences, among which gastrointestinal side effects are quite common. Gastrointestinal symptoms occur in up to 25% to 50%…
Anaerobic bacteria are a major component of the normal human microbiota (formerly termed the normal flora ) residing on mucous membranes and predominate in many infectious processes, particularly those arising from mucosal sites. These organisms generally cause disease after the…
Revised November, 2019 Lyme disease or Lyme borreliosis, which is caused by the tick-borne spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi (sensu lato), occurs in temperate regions of North America, Europe, and Asia. It is now the most common vector-borne disease in the United…
Relapsing fever is characterized by recurrent fevers with spirochetemia caused by organisms of the Borrelia genus. The spirochetes are broadly divided between endemic tick-borne species (tick-borne relapsing fever [TBRF]) and epidemic louse-borne species (louse-borne relapsing fever [LBRF]). TBRF occurs in…
History A syndrome of severe multisystem disease, presenting with profound jaundice and renal function impairment, was described by Weil in Heidelberg in 1886. Other descriptions of disease that probably represent leptospirosis were made earlier, but the etiology cannot be definitively…
The endemic treponematoses comprise yaws, endemic syphilis, and pinta and are caused by Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue, Treponema pallidum subsp. endemicum, and Treponema carateum . Nearly eliminated in the 1960s by an eradication campaign led by the World Health Organization…
Revised January 5, 2021 Syphilis is a complex systemic illness caused by the highly invasive, noncultivable spirochete Treponema pallidum. It holds a special place in the history of Western medicine because of its prevalence in modern times before the advent…
A large number of gram-negative aerobic bacilli have been reported to cause human infection. In this chapter, selected gram-negative and gram-variable organisms are discussed that have not been described in other chapters and are important in certain clinical or epidemiologic…
Donovanosis is a chronic, progressive ulcerative disease of the skin and subcutaneous tissues that is caused by the encapsulated, gram-negative bacterium Klebsiella (formerly Calymmatobacterium ) granulomatis. The infection is also commonly referred to as granuloma inguinale, but because this term…
Revised March 27, 2021 Background and Classification of Bartonella Species The genus Bartonella is a member of the class Alphaproteobacteria and family Bartonellaceae, and it is closely related to the genera Brucella and Agrobacterium ; members of the family Rickettsiaceae…