Vet World Vol.12 May-2019 Article-11
Research Article
Veterinary World, 12(5): 696-699
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2019.696-699
Detection of serum antibodies against Leptospira spp. in brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) from Grenada, West Indies
Background and Aim: Leptospirosis is an emerging disease of animals and humans. Among rodents brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) are an important reservoir of bacteria Leptospira. There is a paucity of information on reservoirs of Leptospira in Grenada. This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of antibodies against Leptospira spp. in brown rats in a densely human populated area of Grenada.
Materials and Methods: Blood samples from 169 brown rats were collected and sera screened for antibodies against Leptospira spp. using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
Results: Among a total of 169 brown rats trapped in two parishes in Grenada, 77/169 (45.5%) were positive for Leptospira spp. antibodies. A significant difference in seropositive population of brown rats between two collection sites was observed. No differences were found between sex and age of seropositive rats.
Conclusion: Due to the close contact of brown rats with humans in Grenada, rats should be considered a high-risk factor in transmission of Leptospira to humans. Appropriate preventive measures should be instituted to prevent the transmission of Leptospira infection to humans. Keywords: brown rats, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, Grenada, Leptospira spp.
Keywords: brown rats, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, Grenada, Leptospira spp.
How to cite this article: Sharma RN, Thille K, Piechowski B, Tiwari K (2019) Detection of serum antibodies against Leptospira spp. in brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) from Grenada, West Indies, Veterinary World, 12(5): 696-699.
Received: 18-12-2018 Accepted: 25-03-2019 Published online: 23-05-2019
Corresponding author: Ravindra Nath Sharma E-mail: rsharma@sgu.edu
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2019.696-699
Copyright: Sharma, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.