Presence of B. thailandensis and B. thailandensis expressing B. pseudomallei-like capsular polysaccharide in Thailand, and their associations with serological response to B. pseudomallei

The
data provided comprises of bacterial culture results for the three
organisms (positive/negative), soil physiochemical properties and location
information (GPS coordinates, province, region and country) of 61 rice fields
in Thailand, and antibodies against B. pseudomallei measured
by an indirect haemagglutination assay (IHA) of 92 rice farmers who worked in
the sampled rice fields.

Sixty one rice field located in 61
villages from the East (19), Central (21) and the Northeast (21) Thailand were
randomly selected. Soil was sampled in the dry season (April-June) in 2013,
2014, 2015. In each rice field, gird of 10x10 grid (2.5m apart) was plotted to
generate 100 sampling points. We collected 20 grams of soil, 10g for culture
for B. thailandensis, BTCV variant and B. pseudomallei
and another 10g was for soil physiochemical properties tests. The positive rice
field is the field that at least one sample was positive for each organism.

An indirect haemagglutination assay
(IHA) was used to detect antibodies against B. pseudomallei as described
previously (Ileri et al. 1975, Alexander et al. 1970). Blood samples from rice
farmers whom worked in the sampled rice fields for within 12 months prior to
the sampling date were collected. An IHA titre of <1:80 was define as
negative.

The study protocol was approved by
the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University
(MUTM2013-021-01) and the Oxford Tropical Research Ethics Committee, University
of Oxford (OXTREC 1013-13).

There are two data files, the first
file (Data1of2) contains bacterial culture results and soil physicochemical
properties. Each
row represents presence of B. thailandensis, BTCV
and B. pseudomallei and soil characteristics per sampled site. For the
second file (Data2of2), each row represents antibodies
against B. pseudomallei per each farmer whom exposed to sampled rice fields.
In addition, demographic information of farmers (age, gender) and known
diagnosis of diabetes militus are also provided in the Data2of2. Please see the
data dictionary for descriptions of each variable.