立克次体是一类严格细胞内寄生的原核细胞型微生物，已被列入生物战剂名录。立克次体病是一类严重威胁人类健康的人兽共患的自然疫源性疾病。立克次体严格的细胞寄生性决定了立克次体病的诊断不同于传统方法，需根据流行病学资料、临床症状和体征及实验室检测进行综合判断，通常实验室检测是明确诊断的主要依据。从病原体的分离和培养到目前的基因水平比对，立克次体的检测技术虽发展了100多年，但人类尚未实现早期快速诊断立克次体病的目标。本文主要综述了立克次体与立克次体病检测与鉴定的研究进展。

Rickettsia is an obligate intracellular parasitic bacterium which has been included in the list of biowarfare agents. Rickettsial diseases are zoonotic, natural focal diseases, and also threats to human health seriously. Different from the standard detection methods for other bacteria, the diagnosis of rickettsial diseases needs a collective consideration of the epidemiological data, clinical symptoms and laboratory test results. Although Rickettsia detection technology has been developed for more than 100 years, early rapid diagnosis is still difficult. Current progresses on Rickettsia and rickettsial disease detection, including pathogen isolation and molecular detections, are reviewed in this paper.