Clinical and Epidemiological Status of Leptospirosis in a Tropical Caribbean Area of Colombia

Abstract

Objective To describe and analyze the clinical and epidemiological status in 28 confirmed cases of human leptospirosis at the main public hospital of Cordoba. Methods Between 2012 and 2013, we conducted an active surveillance at the main hospital of Cordoba to establish the etiologic diagnosis of the undifferentiated tropical febrile illness (UTFI) cases. UTFI is defined as a fever without an infection focus in the initial physical examination or in basic laboratory tests. Patients in acute phase were accompanied by prodromal symptoms, including myalgia, arthralgia, headache, asthenia, chills, icterus, dyspnea, abdominal pain, rash, and nausea. Samples were collected on admission and at discharge. Clinical and epidemiological data were collected for each patient. Microscopic agglutination test (MAT) was performed. Results The 28 leptospirosis cases presented the following gender distribution: male (n=24) and female (n=4). The duration of hospitalization was 10.39 days. The main symptoms and clinical manifestations were fever, headache and nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, all of which occurred in up to 60% of patients. Of the 28 cases studied, 4 were fatal. The most frequent infecting serogroups were Ballum and Canicola. Conclusion Leptospirosis is a common cause of undifferentiated tropical febrile illness in Colombia; it is important to establish ongoing and accurate surveillance for acute febrile illness to facilitate the detection of cases of leptospirosis.

Significant Clinical Presentation of Leptospirosis in Relation to Sociodemographic and Risk Factors in a Tertiary Hospital, Malaysia

“…However, the majority of other studies showed minimal or no gastrointestinal presentation in leptospirosis (Abgueguen et al 2008, Svarch et al 2017, Pakoa et al 2018, Sukmark et al 2018. Only a few studies showed similar finding whereby nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain occurred in up to 60% of patients, after fever and headache by Tique et al (2018) in Columbia and about 70% in Brazil by Daher et al (2010) after fever, jaundice, myalgia, and headache.…”

Leptospirosis in Indonesia: diagnostic challenges associated with atypical clinical manifestations and limited laboratory capacity

“…Observing these unexpected GI symptoms with leptospirosis should raise the index of suspicion among clinicians seeing acute febrile patients. As reports on the frequency of GI symptoms in leptospirosis vary [4,[21][22][23], further study is needed to better characterize the clinical manifestations of leptospirosis in endemic areas.…”

Determinants of prolonged hospitalization and mortality among leptospirosis patients attending tertiary care hospitals in northeastern state in Peninsular Malaysia: A cross sectional retrospective analysis

“…Identi cation of early clinical markers associated with prolonged hospitalization or mortality will enable clinicians to promptly start the proper treatment including antibiotic initiation, starting dialysis or even ICU admission which is expected to decreases the risk for unfavorable outcome and hopefully will result in better consequences and reducing hospitalization duration and costs [25]. It is the best of knowledge that this study is the rst large scale study to investigate the factors associated with prolonged hospitalization and mortality in Malaysian population.…”