Seroprevalence of Leptospirosis among Shabramant Village Inhabitants, Giza, Egypt

Amgad ElZahaby¹, Samy Zaky¹, Nawal Hassanain, A.², El Sayed Radwan³, Mohey Hassanain, A.^2* Mohammed Hegazy¹ & Ahmed Maher, M.²

¹Tropical Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt
²Department of Zoonotic Diseases, National Research Centre, 33 EL Bohouth Street, Dokki, 12622, Giza, Egypt
³Leptospirosis Unit- Animal Reproduction Research Institute (ARRI), 5 Hadaek Al-Ahram Street, Giza, Egypt

Dr. Mohey Hassanain, A., Department of Zoonotic Diseases, National, Research Center, 33 EL Bohouth Street, Dokki, 12622, Giza, Egypt.

Keywords: Leptospira; Prevalence; Risk Exposure; Rodents; Egypt

Abstract

Leptospirosis is considered as the most common zoonosis in the world. This study was designed to be a cross section study conducted at the period extending from June 2016 to May 2017 with the aims of determining leptospiral infection prevalence among people living in Shabramant village at El-Giza governorate and identifying associated environmental and behavioral risk factors for the infection. We operated our study on 400 subjects; a structured questionnaire was carried out to collect information on person’s potential risk factors for leptospiral infection and MAT (Micro Agglutination Test) was done using nine Leptospira serovars to determine the presence of leptospiral antibodies and their titers in the sera of investigated subjects. Our results showed that leptospirosis disease was found to be common among studied cases (44%) and L. Icterohemorrhagiae was the only serovar detected among the studied cases. Age and sex can be regarded as risk factors of leptospirosis as middle age female patients were predominating (52.6%). Co-infection was noted in this study; 22.2% of cases had positivity for HCV Abs which can be regarded as a risk factor for acquiring this disease. Also living close to places where rodents and animals inhabit was considered as important risk factor for exposure to such infection. It can be concluded that high prevalence (44%) of leptospirosis was detected among the studied subjects at Shabramant village. Many of the risk factors and environmental drivers identified in our study provide a significant cause for concern about future risk of leptospirosis.

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