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Abstract
In the past decade, leptospirosis has emerged as a major zoonosis with a worldwide distribution. The disease is caused by bacteria of the genus Leptospira. The western Indian Ocean includes more than one hundred tropical or subequatorial islands where leptospirosis constitutes a major public health problem. The clinical signs of the human disease are generally similar to an influenza-like syndrome, but acute forms of the disease are reported and mortality remains significant in this region. In animals, clinical forms are mainly asymptomatic but leptospirosis reduces the fertility of livestock, resulting in economic losses. The data available about human and animal leptospirosis in the western Indian Ocean islands are diverse: human leptospirosis has been extensively studied in Reunion Island, Mayotte, and the Seychelles, whereas the human clinical disease has never been described in Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, or Rodrigues, mainly because of the deficiency in appropriate medical and diagnostic structures. The rat is recognized as the major reservoir host for the bacteria on all islands, but recent data from Reunion Island indicates that almost all mammals can be a source of contamination. The incidence of leptospirosis in humans is highly seasonal, and linked to the rainy season, which is favorable for the environmental maintenance and transmission of the bacteria. The epidemiology of leptospirosis is fully island-dependent, related to the number of mammalian species, the origins of the introduced mammalian species, the relationships between humans and fauna, and environmental as well as cultural and socio-economic factors.
Highlights
In the past decade, leptospirosis has emerged as a major zoonosis with a worldwide distribution
The pathogenic species comprise more than 250 serovars belonging to approximately 24 serogroups based on agglutinating lipopolysaccharide antigens [8]
The most widely used test is the microscopic agglutination test (MAT) in which patient sera are mixed with antigen suspensions of live Leptospira and examined by dark-field microscopy for agglutination [5]
Summary
Mini is the major serogroup responsible for human clinical cases in Mayotte whereas Icterohaemorrhagiae has never been isolated from patients in Mayotte which represents a unique epidemiological situation [21]; the other Leptospira serogroups identified in patients are Pyrogenes, Grippotyphosa, and Pomona. Since 2007, more than one hundred Leptospira strains have been isolated from patient blood samples on Mayotte [21], and sequencing and MLVA, have classified these human isolates into four genomospecies: L. interrogans, L. kirschneri, L. borgpetersenii, and L. borgpetersenii group B, which is a newly described species [21] Serological typing of these isolates showed that these four species are distributed into four serogroups: Mini, which represents the great majority of the infecting strains, Grippotyphosa, Pomona, and Pyrogenes. This may help the implementation of adapted island-specific and cost-effective preventive measures
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