Rodent-borne hemorrhagic fevers: under-recognized, widely spread and preventable – epidemiology, diagnostics and treatment

Abstract

This review presents an overview of the most important rodent-borne hemorrhagic fever pathogens directly transmitted from rodents to humans, namely Leptospira and hantaviruses, together with the New- and Old-World arenaviruses. These zoonotic diseases frequently share clinical symptoms, transmission routes and other epidemiological features and often have an emerging pattern. Differential diagnostics could benefit from a syndrome-based approach grouping these pathogens. In this review extensive descriptions of the epidemiology, clinical symptoms, diagnostics and treatment are provided including a practical overview, listing clinical features, diagnostics and risk factors for each selected rodent-borne hemorrhagic fever pathogen.

Keywords::

• Hantavirus
• Lassa fever
• Leptospirosis
• rodent-borne diseases
• south-american haemmorrhagic fever

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Michiel Gravesteijn and Lonneke Kiel for their help with the figures. Furthermore we would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Spread global health initiative facilitating the collaborative work between different workgroups working in the infectious diseases field. This study was partially funded by EU grant FP7-261504 EDENext and is catalogued by the EDENext Steering Committee as EDENext 011 (http://www.edenext.eu). The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.