vol21no7_pdf-version

LETTERSDiversity of Bartonella spp.in Bats, Southern VietnamPham Hong Anh, Nguyen Van Cuong,Nguyen Truong Son, Ngo Tri Tue, Michael Kosoy,Mark E.J. Woolhouse, Stephen Baker,Juliet E. Bryant, Guy Thwaites,Juan J. Carrique-Mas, Maia A. RabaaAuthor affiliations: Oxford University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam(P.H. Anh, N. Van Cuong, N.T. Son, N.T. Tue, S. Baker,J.E. Bryant, G. Thwaites, J.J. Carrique-Mas, M.A. Rabaa);Vietnam Academy of Sciences and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam(N.T. Son); Centers for Disease Control and PreventionFort Collins, Colorado, USA (M. Kosoy); University of Edinburgh,Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (M.E.J. Woolhouse, M.A. Rabaa);London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK(S. Baker); Oxford University, Oxford, UK (S. Baker, J.E. Bryant,G. Thwaites, J.J. Carrique-Mas)DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2107.141760To the Editor: To investigate bats as potential reservoirsfor Bartonella spp. in Vietnam, we screened a rangeof bat species to determine the prevalence and genetic diversityof Bartonella spp. in bat populations in southernVietnam. In a study of bat biodiversity in southern Vietnam,60 bats were trapped at 6 sites in Dong Nai Cultureand Nature Reserve and Cat Tien National Park, Vietnam,in May 2013. Bats were trapped by using mist nets andharp traps set at ground level, and were euthanized by usingisoflurane (http://www.avma.org/KB/Policies/Documents/euthanasia.pdf) for cataloguing at the Vietnam Academyof Sciences and Technology, Hanoi. Blood specimens werecollected by cardiac puncture, and external measurementswere recorded. Bats were speciated according to morphology(1,2); trapped bats represented 10 species belonging to5 genera. All species have been given a conservation statusof least concern (http://www.iucnredlist.org/).Total nucleic acid was extracted from blood samplesby using the MagNApure automated nucleic acid extractionsystem (Roche, Basel, Switzerland). Extracted nucleicacid was subjected to conventional PCR to detect Bartonellaspp. DNA by using primers specific for the citrate synthaseA gene (3). A positive PCR result was determined byamplification of a 729-bp fragment. Twenty-one (35.0%) of60 bat blood specimens had a result consistent with presenceof Bartonella spp. (Table). Among insectivorous orcarnivorous bats, Bartonella prevalence was 20 (45.5%) of44 compared with 1 (6.2%) of 16 fruit-eating bats (χ 2 = 6.3,p = 0.01). The prevalence of Bartonella spp. did not differbetween sampling locations (Table) or by estimated age ofthe bat (determined by deviation above or below the mediantibial length of each species); prevalence was 33.3% (9/27)in younger bats and 36.4% (12/33) in older bats.DNA sequences from the 21 PCR citrate synthaseA gene amplicons (GenBank accession nos. KP100340–KP100360) were subjected to BLAST analysis (http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi) to assess sequence similarity.Potentially novel Bartonella phylogroups were identifiedas having