Abstract
Rhodococcus equi is an emerging opportunistic pathogen of human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients. However, little is known about the distribution of virulent and intermediately virulent R.equi in human environment. In the present study, R.equi was isolated from 173 of 234 (73.9%) samples collected from soil and sand on 115 parks and 49 yards in Japan. The numbers of R.equi from soil and sand ranged from 2.5×101 to 1.2×105 per gram of sample. None of 1, 294 isolates from those samples showed virulence-associated 15- to 17-kDa antigens and a 20-kDa antigen. These results suggest that avirulent R.equi is widespread in parks and yards, but the human environment has not been contaminated with virulent and intermediately virulent R.equi strains yet.
