Low Prevalence of Carriage in Rodents in Leptospirosis-Endemic Northeastern Thailand.

Leptospirosis is a neglected zoonotic disease affecting mostly the world's tropical regions. The rural people of northeastern Thailand suffer from a large number of leptospirosis infections, and their abundant rice fields are optimal rodent habitats. To evaluate the contribution of diversity and carriage rate of pathogenic in rodent reservoirs to leptospirosis incidence, we surveyed rodents, between 2011 and 2012, in four provinces in northeastern Thailand with the highest incidence rates of human leptospirosis cases. We used real-time PCR to detect pathogenic in rodent kidneys, partial 16S rRNA gene sequencing to classify the infecting species, and whole 16S rDNA sequencing to classify species of isolated . Overall prevalence of infection was 3.6% (18/495). Among infected rodents, (14.3%), (3.6%), and . (3.2%) had renal carriage. We identified two pathogenic species: . ( = 15) and . ( = 3). In addition, an . (LS0914U) isolate was recovered from the urine of . . infection was more prevalent in low density rodent populations, such as . . In contrast, there was a lower prevalence of infection in high density rodent populations of . and . .