Human Rickettsia felis Infection, Canary Islands,

Abstract

infection hasbeen reported in Mexico (3 patients) (7), Germany (1patient) (8), Brazil (2 patients) (1), and France (2 patients)(1). The clinical manifestations of the disease include highfever, rash, and elevation of liver enzymes (1,4,7).Exposure to fleas or to flea-prone animals is sometimesrecorded (7,8). On the Canary Islands (Atlantic islands of Spain),autochthonous cases of murine typhus have been reported(9). Although we suspected that some patients with a clin-ical picture of murine typhus actually had