History of Leptospirosis and Leptospira

Adler, Ben

doi:10.1007/978-3-662-45059-8_1

Cited by 125 publications

(165 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…It affects both domesticated and wild animals. 1 Infected animals excrete leptospires in their urine, and direct or indirect exposure to the contaminated urine causes leptospiral infection in humans. 2 Direct Leptospira infection occurs through penetration of impaired skin barrier and ingestion of food contaminated with urine of infected rats, whereas indirect infection occurs by inhalation of contaminated fluid aerosols, as occurs in slaughterhouses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leptospirosis Seroprevalence Among Blue Metal Mine Workers of Tamil Nadu, India

Parveen

Suganyaa

Sathya

et al. 2016

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Leptospirosis is mainly considered an occupational disease, prevalent among agriculture, sewage works, forestry, and animal slaughtering populations. However, putative risk to miners and their inclusion in the high-risk leptospirosis group remain in need of rigorous analysis. Therefore, a study was conducted with the objective to assess the leptospirosis seroprevalence among miners of two districts of Tamil Nadu, India. A total of 244 sera samples from Pudukkottai miners (124) and Karur miners (120) were analyzed by microscopic agglutination test. Antibodies to leptospires were detected in 94 samples giving an overall seroprevalence of 38.5%. The seroprevalence was higher among Pudukkottai miners (65.3%) when compared with Karur miners (10.8%). Seroprevalence among control population (13%) was significantly less than that of the Pudukkottai miners marking a possible high-risk population group distinction. Subject sera most commonly reacted with organisms of the serogroup Autumnalis, and the pattern was similar in carrier animals of the study areas. Two leptospires were isolated from kidney samples of rats. The prevalence of Autumnalis among rodents and humans source tracked human leptospirosis among the miners. The study also determined that Pudukkottai miners are subjected to high-risk challenges such as exposure to water bodies on the way to the mines (odds ratio [OR] = 10.6), wet mine areas (OR = 10.6), rat infestation (OR = 4.6), and cattle rearing (OR = 10.4) and are thus frequently exposed to leptospirosis compared with Karur miners. Hence, control strategies targeting these populations will likely to prove to be effective remediation strategies benefiting Pudukkottai miners and workers in similar environments across occupations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leptospirosis Seroprevalence Among Blue Metal Mine Workers of Tamil Nadu, India

Parveen

Suganyaa

Sathya

et al. 2016

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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“…The causative agents are a unique group of spirochetes divided into 10 pathogenic Leptospira species and Ͼ200 serovars (1,2,4,5). Leptospires are able to establish acute disease in susceptible hosts and chronic carriage in the proximal kidney tubules of reservoir hosts and persist for weeks to months in the environment after excretion (1,2,6,7).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Leptospires are highly motile spirochetes that penetrate abraded skin and mucous membranes and cross tissue barriers to disseminate hematogenously, resulting in a systemic infection (2,5,8,11,12). After dissemination, leptospiremia persists until the onset of the host immune response, which occurs within 2 weeks after exposure (13).…”

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confidence: 99%

Real-Time PCR Reveals Rapid Dissemination of Leptospira interrogans after Intraperitoneal and Conjunctival Inoculation of Hamsters

et al. 2016

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eThe pathogen Leptospira interrogans is a highly motile spirochete that causes acute and fulminant infections in humans and other accidental hosts. Hematogenous dissemination is important for infection by the pathogen but remains poorly understood because few animal model studies have used sensitive tools to quantify the bacteria. We evaluated the kinetics of leptospiral infection in Golden Syrian hamsters by a sensitive quantitative real-time PCR (TaqMan) with lipl32 as the target gene. The dissemination and bacterial burden were measured after intraperitoneal infection with a high dose (10 8 ) or low dose (2.5 ؋ 10 2 ) of leptospires. We also examined the conjunctival challenge route to mimic the natural history of infection. Quantification of leptospires in perfused animals revealed that pathogens were detected in all organs of intraperitoneally infected hamsters, including the eye and brain, within 1 h after inoculation of 10 8 virulent L. interrogans bacteria. Peaks of 10 5 to 10 8 leptospires per gram or per milliliter were achieved in blood and all tissues between day 4 and day 8 after intraperitoneal inoculation of highand low-dose challenges, respectively, coinciding with macroscopic and histological changes. The conjunctival route resulted in a delay in the time to peak organ burden in comparison to intraperitoneal infection, indicating that although infection could be established, penetration efficiency was low across this epithelial barrier. Surprisingly, infection with a large inoculum of highpassage-number attenuated L. interrogans strains resulted in dissemination to all organs in the first 4 days postinfection, albeit with a lower burden, followed by clearance from the blood and organs 7 days postinfection and survival of all animals. These results demonstrate that leptospiral dissemination and tissue invasion occur. In contrast, development of a critical level of tissue burden and pathology are dependent on the virulence of the infecting strain.

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“…The severity of outcomes in leptospirosis has been based considerably on the environment, pathogen virulence, and host susceptibility. 16 Host immune responses are hypothesized to be the more significant ones to exhibit the dramatic symptoms of the disease than virulence of the pathogen. 1 In this study, the ex vivo phenotypes of CD4 + T-cell subsets were compared among different groups.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%