Background Leprosy elimination primarily targets transmission of Mycobacterium leprae which is not restricted to patients’ households. As interruption of transmission is imminent in many countries, a test to detect infected asymptomatic individuals who can perpetuate transmission is required. Antibodies directed against M. leprae antigens are indicative of M. leprae infection but cannot discriminate between active and past infection. Seroprevalence in young children, however, reflects recent M. leprae infection and may thus be used to monitor transmission in an area. Therefore, this literature review aimed to evaluate what has been reported on serological tests measuring anti-M. leprae antibodies in children without leprosy below the age of 15 in leprosy-endemic areas. Methods and findings A literature search was performed in the databases Pubmed, Infolep, Web of Science and The Virtual Health Library. From the 724 articles identified through the search criteria, 28 full-text articles fulfilled all inclusion criteria. Two additional papers were identified through snowballing, resulting in a total of 30 articles reporting data from ten countries. All serological tests measured antibodies against phenolic glycolipid-I or synthetic derivatives thereof, either quantitatively (ELISA or UCP-LFA) or qualitatively (ML-flow or NDO-LID rapid test). The median seroprevalence in children in endemic areas was 14.9% and was stable over time if disease incidence remained unchanged. Importantly, seroprevalence decreased with age, indicating that children are a suitable group for sensitive assessment of recent M. leprae infection. However, direct comparison between areas, solely based on the data reported in these studies, was impeded by the use of different tests and variable cut-off levels. Conclusions Quantitative anti-PGL-I serology in young children holds promise as a screening test to assess M. leprae infection and may be applied as a proxy for transmission and thereby as a means to monitor the effect of (prophylactic) interventions on the route to leprosy elimination.

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Climate change and variability are common phenomena affecting various infectious diseases. Many studies have been performed on vector-borne diseases; however, few studies have addressed such influences on intestinal parasitic diseases (e.g., giardiasis). In this study, using nonlinear Poisson regression models, we assessed the potential associations between macroclimatic variation and giardiasis cases in children and school workers from three provinces of Cuba in the context of large sampling and parasitological assessment. Between 2010 and 2012, 293,019 subjects were assessed, resulting in 6357 positive for Giardia (216.95 cases/10,000 pop.; 95%CI 211.7-222.2). The variation in time for those giardiasis rates ranged from 35.8 to 525.8 cases/10,000 pop. Nonlinear Poisson regression models between the ONI index and the giardiasis incidence indicated a significant association (p<0.01). With lower values of ONI, lower incidence of giardiasis was observed at Havana (pseudo r(2)=0.0576; p<0.001) and Guantánamo (pseudo r(2)=0.0376; p<0.001). Although these results are preliminary and the magnitude of association is not higher, the results were of statistical significance. This result indicates the need to assess in detail in further studies the impact of additional macroclimatic and microclimatic variables on the epidemiology of this still important intestinal parasitic disease, not only in Cuba but also in other countries of the Caribbean and Latin American region.

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