Bacterium May Be Linked to Illness Among AIDS Patients
From Times staff and wire reports
The bacterium responsible for cat scratch fever and trench fever, which felled more than a million soldiers during World War I, may be responsible for an often-overlooked illness among AIDS patients, according to a study in today’s New England Journal of Medicine. A team led by Dr. Jane E. Koehler of UC San Francisco studied 49 patients with a recurrent infection known as bacillary angiomatosis-peliosis.
They found that in 53% of the cases the infection came from the bacteria that causes cat scratch fever. In the remaining 47%, the trench fever bacteria was responsible.
