To determine the proportion of fevers caused by leptospirosis, we obtained serum specimens and epidemiologic and clinical data from patients in Galle, Sri Lanka, March-October 2007. Immunoglobulin M ELISA was performed on paired serum specimens to diagnose acute (seroconversion or 4-fold titer rise) or past (titer without rise) leptospirosis and seroprevalence (acute). We compared (individually...

S ir, I read the article “Mildly Elevated Transaminases: Excellent diagnostic c l u e f o r A n i c t e r i c L e p t o s p i r o s i s ” with interest.1 Leptospirosis can be diagnosed only by laboratory tests as clinical features are non specific. But the laboratory tests are complex and hence definite guidelines for diagnosis of human leptospirosis is necessary. I fully agree that microscopic...

BACKGROUND Leptospirosis is becoming a major public health threat in Sri Lanka as well as in other countries. We designed a case control study to determine the factors associated with local transmission of leptospirosis in Sri Lanka, in order to identify major modifiable determinants of leptospirosis. The purpose of this paper is to describe the study protocol in detail prior to the publishing ...

BACKGROUND Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and leptospirosis are seasonal rodent-borne infections in the Republic of Korea (Korea). The occurrences of HFRS and leptospirosis are influenced by climatic variability. However, few studies have examined the effects of local climatic variables on the development of these infections. The purpose of this study was to estimate the effect of...

OBJECTIVE To characterize current leptospirosis reporting practices in the Americas. METHODS Information was collected from the official websites of national ministries of health from the Americas region and two international organizations; personal communications; and three international morbidity databases. For all sources other than the morbidity databases, the review was limited to offici...

BACKGROUND Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is common among patients with sepsis. Leptospirosis is an important cause of sepsis in tropical areas, and pulmonary hemorrhage associated with thrombocytopenia is the major cause of death, but the coagulopathy in severe leptospirosis has not been further characterized. The aim of this study was to evaluate coagulation factors and the pres...

BACKGROUND The incidence of leptospirosis, a neglected zoonotic disease, is uncertain in Tanzania and much of sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in scarce data on which to prioritize resources for public health interventions and disease control. In this study, we estimate the incidence of leptospirosis in two districts in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We conduc...

BACKGROUND Leptospirosis is a potentially fatal bacterial zoonosis that is endemic throughout the tropics and may be misdiagnosed as dengue. Delayed hospital admission of leptospirosis patients is associated with increased mortality. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS During a concurrent dengue/leptospirosis epidemic in Puerto Rico in 2010, suspected dengue patients that tested dengue-negative we...

Background: Thrombocytopenia is a common finding in leptospirosis, but its exact mechanism is unknown. Results of studies on coagulation alterations during leptospirosis were inconsistent, some findings showed that the prominent levels of thrombocytopenia seen in severe leptospirosis do not reflect the occurrence of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) syndrome, but others reached the c...

Concomitant leptospirosis and scrub typhus is rare. The spectrum of clinical severity for both scrub typhus and leptospirosis ranges from mild to fatal. Acute pancreatitis and cholecystitis are infrequent complications in adult patients with either leptospirosis or scrub typhus. We report a case of leptospirosis and scrub typhus coinfection in a 41-year-old man presenting with acute acalculous ...