A nationwide survey of Leishmania infantum infection in cats and associated risk factors in Italy

Abstract

Though scantly investigated, Leishmania infantum infection and clinical cases of leishmaniasis in cats have been recently reported in several countries of the Mediterranean basin, with large variability in prevalence data. A major limitation in the comparability of the data available is attributed to the differences in diagnostic techniques employed and cat populations sampled. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of L . infantum infection in owned cats across Italy by serological and molecular tests and the identification of potential risk factors. Blood samples from 2,659 cats from northern (n = 1,543), central (n = 471) and southern (n = 645) Italy were tested for antibodies against L . infantum , by an immunofluorescence antibody test and for the parasites’ DNA, by real-time PCR. Samples were additionally screened for feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) proviral DNAs. An overall cumulative L . infantum prevalence of 3.9% was recorded by serology (3.3%) and/or qPCR (0.8%), with a higher rate (10.5%) in southern Italy. The risk of L . infantum infection in cats was significantly associated to the geographical areas (South vs North and Centre; p<0.0001), age class (from 19 months to 6 years old vs ≤18 months old, p = 0.0003), neutering status (not neutered vs neutered, p = 0.0028) and FIV infection (p = 0.0051).Though the role of cats in the epidemiology of L . infantum is still debated, our findings indicate that cats are exposed to and/or infected by this protozoan, mainly in endemic regions of Italy. Hence, a standardization of procedures for a prompt diagnosis of L . infantum infection in cats and for screening cat population is crucial for a better understanding of the epidemiology of feline leishmaniasis, and of the potential role of cats in the transmission cycle of zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis.

Leishmania infection in cats and dogs housed together in an animal shelter reveals a higher parasite load in infected dogs despite a greater seroprevalence among cats

“…FIV serology was positive in 7% of the cats and no statistically significant association was found between FIV and L. infantum infections. Some other studies on large numbers of cats in Italy and Brazil have found an association between feline leishmaniosis and FIV [17,18] whereas studies from Spain and Cyprus failed to find such an association [19,20]. It is likely that an association between FIV and L. infantum infection was not found in the present study due to the small number of FIV-positive cats detected in the shelter and the overall limited feline population size evaluated.…”

A molecular survey of vector-borne pathogens and haemoplasmas in owned cats across Italy

“…Most of the literature generated on FeVBDs worldwide has been focussed on feline leishmaniosis in concomitant with viral infections by feline leukaemia virus (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and on feline bartonellosis or haemoplasmosis [3,[12][13][14][15][16][17]. In contrast, a relative low number of studies were conducted on Rickettsia spp., Anaplasma spp., Hepatozoon spp.…”

Clinical, haematological and biochemical findings in tigers infected by Leishmania infantum

“…infantum. Similarly, this picture has been suggested also for cats, which presumably act as reservoir hosts at least in endemic areas of zoonotic VL (Pennisi et al, 2018;Asfaram et al, 2019;Iatta et al, 2019).…”

“…In endemic areas, L. infantum is maintained by several mammal species in nature (Roque and Jansen, 2014) and the role of wildlife species (e.g., red fox, golden jackal, gray wolf, hare, black rat) has been suggested in a series of studies (Millan et al, 2014;Otranto et al, 2015). After being long regarded as resistant, cats have gain the interest of the scientific community as hosts of L. infantum, mainly in endemic areas (Iatta et al, 2019;Asfaram et al, 2019). Clinical signs compatible with feline leishmaniasis (FeL) include lymphadenomegaly, splenomegaly, weight loss, anorexia, as well as cutaneous, mucocutaneous and ocular lesions (Pennisi et al, 2018).…”