U.S. scientists claim to have uncovered a new strain of potentially deadly bacteria named bartonella rochalimae. The new species is considered to be related to the microbe that was known during the First World War as the trench fever.

It was discovered in a 43-year-old American woman who exhibited symptoms similar to typhoid fever or malaria. She had acquired it after her three week travel in Peru and has since recovered.

The bacteria is also connected to one that was found 10 years ago during the AIDS epidemic related to the cat scratch disease.

It is the sixth species found to infect humans, according to Dr. Jane Koehler, professor of infectious diseases at UCSF and senior author of the paper.

Experts at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had based their discovery of the new bacteria on the research made on the cat scratch disease.

The findings can be read in the New England Journal of Medicine.