Leptospira Species in Floodwater during the 2011 Floods in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, Thailand

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Floodwater samples ( N = 110) collected during the 2011 Bangkok floods were tested for Leptospira using culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR); 65 samples were PCR-positive for putatively non-pathogenic Leptospira species, 1 sample contained a putatively pathogenic Leptospira, and 6 samples contained Leptospira clustering phylogenetically with the intermediate group. The low prevalence of pathogenic and intermediate Leptospira in floodwater was consistent with the low number of human leptospirosis cases reported to the Bureau of Epidemiology in Thailand. This study provides baseline information on environmental Leptospira in Bangkok together with a set of laboratory tests that could be readily deployed in the event of future flooding.

Related collections

Most cited references 4

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Epidemic leptospirosis associated with pulmonary hemorrhage-Nicaragua, 1995.

R T Trevejo, J G Rigau-Pérez, D A Ashford … (1998)

In October 1995, epidemic "hemorrhagic fever," without jaundice or renal manifestations, was reported in rural Nicaragua following heavy flooding; 2259 residents were evaluated for nonmalarial febrile illnesses (cumulative incidence, 6.1%) and 15 (0.7%) died with pulmonary hemorrhage. A case-control study found that case-patients were more likely than controls to have ever walked in creeks (matched odds ratio [MOR], 15.0; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.7-132.3), have household rodents (MOR, 10.4; 95% CI, 1.1-97.1), or own dogs with titers >/=400 to Leptospira species (MOR, 23.4; 95% CI, 3.6-infinity). Twenty-six of 51 case-patients had serologic or postmortem evidence of acute leptospirosis. Leptospira species were isolated from case-patients and potential animal reservoirs. This leptospirosis epidemic likely resulted from exposure to flood waters contaminated by urine from infected animals, particularly dogs. Leptospirosis should be included in the differential diagnosis for nonmalarial febrile illness, particularly during periods of flooding or when pulmonary hemorrhage occurs.

0 comments Cited 105 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Outbreak of Leptospirosis after Flood, the Philippines, 2009

Al-shere Amilasan, Mugen Ujiie, Motoi Suzuki … (2012)

After a typhoon in September 2009, an outbreak of leptospirosis occurred in Metro Manila, the Philippines; 471 patients were hospitalized and 51 (10.8%) died. A hospital-based investigation found risk factors associated with fatal infection to be older age, hemoptysis, anuria, jaundice, and delayed treatment with antimicrobial drugs.

0 comments Cited 72 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Molecular detection and speciation of pathogenic Leptospira spp. in blood from patients with culture-negative leptospirosis

Siriphan Boonsilp, Janjira Thaipadungpanit, Premjit Amornchai … (2011)

Background Pathogenic Leptospira spp. present in the blood of patients with leptospirosis during the first week of symptoms can be detected using culture or PCR. A proportion of patients who are positive by PCR are negative by culture. Leptospira spp. are fastidious bacteria, and we hypothesized that a false-negative culture result may represent infection with a distinct bacterial subset that fail to grow in standard culture medium. Methods We evaluated our hypothesis during a prospective study of 418 consecutive patients presenting to a hospital in northeast Thailand with an acute febrile illness. Admission blood samples were taken for Leptospira culture and PCR. A single tube nested PCR that amplified a region of the rrs gene was developed and applied, amplicons sequenced and a phylogenetic tree reconstructed. Results 39/418 (9%) patients were culture-positive for Leptospira spp., and 81/418 (19%) patients were culture-negative but rrs PCR-positive. The species associated with culture-positive leptospirosis (37 L. interrogans and 2 L. borgpetersenii) were comparable to those associated with culture-negative, PCR-positive leptospirosis (76 L. interrogans, 4 L. borgpetersenii, 1 unidentified, possibly new species). Conclusion Molecular speciation failed to identify a unique bacterial subset in patients with culture-negative, PCR-positive leptospirosis. The rate of false-negative culture was high, and we speculate that antibiotic pre-treatment is the most likely explanation for this.

0 comments Cited 30 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Am J Trop Med Hyg

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg

Journal ID (publisher-id): tpmd

Title: The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

Publisher: The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

ISSN (Print): 0002-9637

ISSN (Electronic): 1476-1645

Publication date (Print): 09 October 2013

Publication date PMC-release: 09 October 2013

Volume: 89

Issue: 4

Pages: 794-796

Affiliations

Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit and Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, Tropical Hygiene, and Social and Environmental Medicine, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand; Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Churchill Hospital, Oxford, United Kingdom; Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Author notes

*Address correspondence to Janjira Thaipadungpanit, Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, 420/6 Rajthevee, Bangkok 10400, Thailand. E-mail: janjira@ 123456tropmedres.ac

Article

DOI: 10.4269/ajtmh.13-0124

PMC ID: 3795115

PubMed ID: 24002484

SO-VID: 4dfb2955-58e0-4c08-9850-d5600cd62904

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's Re-use License which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date received : 06 March 2013

Date accepted : 02 July 2013

Comments

Comment on this article

scite_

Smart Citations

Citing PublicationsSupportingMentioningContrasting

View Citations

See how this article has been cited at scite.ai

scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.