Abstract

Leptospirosis is a reemerging zoonosis and ranges in severity from benign to sometimes fatal. In cattle, infection may be responsible for abortion and infertility cases causing economic losses. Humans may be contaminated through direct contact with urine of infected animals or indirectly though interaction with urine-contaminated environment. Many wildlife species living close to cattle, especially commensal rodents may play a role in the transmission of leptospires. Because little is known on the epidemiology of nonmaintenance Leptospira serovars, appropriate management is still limited. On a French farm where human and cattle leptospirosis were detected, the transmission cycle was explored to propose appropriate mitigation measures. For that, commensal rodents present on the farm were trapped and their leptospires carriage was studied by molecular methods. Trapped mice were shown to carry two pathogenic Leptospira species (L. interrogans and L. kirschneri). Since these 2 serogroups were simultaneously detected in the trapped mice and in the cows of this farm, we suspected an initial Leptospira transmission from mice to cows requiring an effective management of mice on this farm. Because resistance to anticoagulant rodenticides due to Vkorc1 mutations has been largely described in rodents and first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides seemed to be inefficient in controlling mice on this farm, susceptibility of these mice to anticoagulants has been characterized by Vkorc1 sequencing. 50% of the trapped mice carried mutations in the Vkorc1 gene leading to severe resistance to first-generation anticoagulants. The management of such mice that are a real sanitary threat can be achieved only by using the most toxic second-generation anticoagulants or nonanticoagulant solutions.

Highlights

  • Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonosis caused by pathogenic leptospires, bacteria from the spirochete order [1, 2]

  • After the demonstration of animal and human leptospirosis cases in a cattle farm located in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region of France, our study aims to identify the most likely transmission scheme(s) on this farm and the methods to be used to prevent any new cases

  • First-generation anticoagulant rodenticides were used by the farmer to control rodent infestation into agricultural buildings

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Summary

Introduction

Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonosis caused by pathogenic leptospires, bacteria from the spirochete order [1, 2] This disease is reemerging [3] affecting approximately 1 million people all over the world each year [4, 5]. Leptospirosis ranges in severity from benign in most cases to sometimes fatal with a mortality rate of around 10 percent and raises a real public health issue [7] This disease can provoke a large variety of symptoms. Main carriers are rodents like rats and coypus but small mammals as mustelids can participate in leptospirosis transmission [11, 12] They accumulate bacteria in kidneys and excrete them by their urine. As many rodents are main carriers of leptospires, efficient rodent management could prevent leptospirosis transmission

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