Acute Q fever is an emergent and severe disease in French Guiana. We obtained 5 Coxiella burnetii isolates from samples of patients from Cayenne and found an epidemic clone circulating in Cayenne. This clone has caused pneumonia and endocarditis and seems to be more virulent than previously described strains.
Keywords: Cayenne; Coxiella burnetii; French Guiana; Q fever; bacteria; clone; genotyping; multispacer sequence typing.