Description of The Pathogen Rickettsia rickettsii, the etiologic agent of Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), is a small, obligately intracellular, gram-negative, rod-shaped organism that is among the most pathogenic of all known bacteria. Although R. rickettsii can infect several different…
Introduction Several bacterial species included in the genus Bartonella, and the pathogens Coxiella burnetii and Tropheryma whipplei, cause a remarkably wide and diverse spectrum of infectious disease syndromes that pose particularly difficult diagnostic challenges for anatomic pathologists. These agents stain…
Influenza Viruses Influenza A and B viruses are antigenically, ecologically, and epidemiologically distinct members of the family Orthomyxoviridae that have segmented, negative-sense RNA genomes and are surrounded by a lipid envelope. Globally, both virus groups are associated with an enormous…