BACKGROUND Leptospirosis, a spirochaetal zoonosis, occurs in diverse epidemiological settings and affects vulnerable populations, such as rural subsistence farmers and urban slum dwellers. Although leptospirosis can cause life-threatening disease, there is no global burden of disease estimate in terms of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) available. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We utili...

BACKGROUND The recent emergence of leptospirosis has been linked to many environmental drivers of disease transmission. Accurate epidemiological data are lacking because of under-diagnosis, poor laboratory capacity, and inadequate surveillance. Predictive risk maps have been produced for many diseases to identify high-risk areas for infection and guide allocation of public health resources, and...

Leptospirosis is worldwide re-emerging zoonosis with protean clinical manifestations. The more common mild, anicteric form is characterized by nonspecific symptoms such as fever, headache, chills, myalgia, nausea and abdominal pain. The severe, potentially fatal form (Weil’s disease) typically presenting as triad of jaundice, acute renal failure (ARF), and hemorrhage is estimated to occur in 5-...

UNLABELLED In order to compare the epidemiological aspects of human brucellosis (HB) and human leptospirosis (HL) outbreaks in Korea, we have analyzed the current state both of the disease incidence and related risk factors. A total 651 cases of HB occurred between 2001 and 2010 in Korea, and the average incidence rate per 100,000 populations was 0.15. A total 1,153 of HL cases occurred during ...

Leptospirosis, caused by Leptospira spp., is one of the most common zoonotic diseases in the world. We tested four recombinant proteins of Leptospira interrogans, namely, rLipL21, rLoa22, rLipL32, and rLigACon4-8, to evaluate their potential for use as antigens for the diagnosis of equine leptospirosis. We employed equine sera (n = 130) that were microscopic agglutination test (MAT) negative an...

Leptospirosis, a re-emerging zoonosis caused by pathogenic Leptospira, has a low incidence in Bulgaria. This paper reports a case of leptospirosis in Pleven, Bulgaria, in which the subject was infected after wading through irrigative canal in northern Greece. Two days later, he had a fever, myalgia and vomiting followed by jaundice, darkness of urine and oliguria. The patient was admitted to Cl...

BACKGROUND Leptospirosis is one of the most important neglected tropical bacterial diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, very little is known about the circulating etiological agents of leptospirosis in this region. In this study, we describe the serological and molecular features of leptospires isolated from 104 leptospirosis patients in Guadeloupe (n = 85) and Martinique (n = ...

Background: A test strip IgM Dot-ELISA assay for the detection of leptospirespecific IgM antibodies in human sera was developed. Antigen dotted on a nitrocellulose paper strip was the sonicated antigen prepared from Leptospira serovar prevalent in this area, i.e., Icterohaemmorhagiae. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate an inhouse prepared IgM DotELISA test strip for the diagnosis ...

Leptospirosis and haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) are hard to distinguish clinically since these two important rodent-borne zoonoses share hallmark symptoms such as renal failure and haemorrhage. Leptospirosis is caused by infection with a spirochete while HFRS is the result of an infection with certain hantaviruses. Both diseases are relatively rare in the Netherlands. Increased ...