About the Authors

Ahmad Ghasemi

Roles Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

‡ AG and ML contributed equally to this project and should be considered co-first authors.

Affiliations Department of Microbiology, Research Center of Reference Health Laboratories, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran, National Reference Laboratory for Plague, Tularemia and Q Fever, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Akanlu, KabudarAhang, Hamadan, Iran

Mina Latifian

Roles Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

‡ AG and ML contributed equally to this project and should be considered co-first authors.

Affiliations National Reference Laboratory for Plague, Tularemia and Q Fever, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Akanlu, KabudarAhang, Hamadan, Iran, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatics, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

Saber Esmaeili

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – original draft

Affiliations National Reference Laboratory for Plague, Tularemia and Q Fever, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Akanlu, KabudarAhang, Hamadan, Iran, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatics, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

Saied Reza Naddaf

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation Department of Parasitology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

Ehsan Mostafavi

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing

mostafaviehsan@gmail.com

Affiliations National Reference Laboratory for Plague, Tularemia and Q Fever, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Akanlu, KabudarAhang, Hamadan, Iran, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatics, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.