[Isolation and identification of HN-98 strain of spotted fever group rickettsiae].

Objective One strain of rickettsiae was isolated from a patient with unknown fever from Qiongzhong county in Hainan Provinve in 1998, using embryonated hen eggs and proved to be the member of rickettsiae by the methods of morphology. It was named HS 98 strain after the name of the place and the year it was isolated.Methods The isolate was identified by methods of Microcomplement fixation assay and OCR/RFLP and compared with known species and strains of SFGR by DNA polymerase chain reaction and DNA polymerase chainreaction and was followed by restriction endonuckease fragment length polymorphism analysis. Results Results demonstrated that HN 98 strain was antigenically and genotypically identical to R.sibirica 246. Conclusion The results suggested that there existed natural foci of spotted fever in Qiongzhong Area of Hainan Province.