Presence of Leptospira spp. and absence of Bartonella spp. in urban rodents of Buenos Aires province, Argentina

ABSTRACT

Big cities of Argentina are characterized by a strong social and economic fragmentation. This context enables the presence of urban rodents in close contact to the human population, mostly in the peripheral areas of the cities. Urban rodents can harbor a large variety of zoonotic pathogens. The aim of this study was to molecularly characterize Leptospira spp. and Bartonella spp. in urban rodents from the area of Gran La Plata, Buenos Aires province, Argentina. The species of urban rodents captured and tested were Rattus norvegicus, Rattus rattus, and Mus musculus. Leptospira interrogans and L. borgpetersenii were detected in R. norvegicus and M. musculus respectively. Bartonella spp. DNA was not detected in any of the kidney samples tested. No significant differences were observed between the prevalence of bacteria and rodent and environmental variables such as host sex, presence of stream and season by Generalized Linear Model analysis. These results confirm the role of urban rodents as infection sources of Leptospira spp., suggesting the need to implement public health measures to prevent the transmission of Leptospira spp. and other zoonotic pathogens from rodents to humans. Bartonella was not detected in this set of samples.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Leptospira
• Bartonella
• rodents
• urban ecology
• zoonotic diseases
• Argentina

Acknowledgments

We deeply thank our colleagues Valeria Scorza, María Fernanda Rizzo, and Maria del Rosario Robles for helping to carry out this study, participating in the coordination of the project, collection and diagnosis of samples. Also, we would like to thank all the people that offered their homes for collection of rodents; to Juan Unzaga, Andrea Dellarupe, Kevin Steffen, Juliana Sanchez, Macarena Zarza, Paola Cociancic, and Lorena Zonta for their help in rodents collection; to Graciela Minardi for the statistical support; and to Carlos Galliari (CEPAVE) and Pablo Teta (MACN) for the rodent identification.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by PIO (Proyecto de Investigación Orientado) CONICET-UNLP.