Backhans, Annette
- Department of Clinical Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Rat carcasses obtained from pest control interventions can potentially be used for an efficient surveillance of zoonotic diseases such as leptospirosis. To evaluate the performance of different laboratory methods for detection of pathogenic Leptospira spp., heart and kidney samples from wild Norway rats were analyzed by microscopic agglutination test (MAT, the gold standard), a commercial IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and by an optimized quantitative PCR (secY qPCR, followed by sequencing). We found secY qPCR to be as sensitive as MAT for screening of Leptospira infection in pest control rats and selected secY qPCR for a larger screening of rats from urban and rural areas in central and southern Sweden. We identified secY qPCR positive rats from the cities Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmo, which were further confirmed by sequencing.
Keywords
Leptospira; Norway rat; zoonosis; qPCR; microscopic agglutination test
Published in
Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases
2019, volume: 19, number: 6, pages: 414-420
Publisher: MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Public Health, Global Health and Social Medicine
Epidemiology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/vbz.2017.2262
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/101067