Presence of spp. and absence of spp. in urban rodents of Buenos Aires province, Argentina.

Big cities of Argentina are characterized by a strong social and economic fragmentation. This context enables the presence of urban rodents in close contact to the human population, mostly in the peripheral areas of the cities. Urban rodents can harbor a large variety of zoonotic pathogens. The aim of this study was to molecularly characterize spp. and spp. in urban rodents from the area of Gran La Plata, Buenos Aires province, Argentina. The species of urban rodents captured and tested were , and and were detected in and respectively. spp. DNA was not detected in any of the kidney samples tested. No significant differences were observed between the prevalence of bacteria and rodent and environmental variables such as host sex, presence of stream and season by Generalized Linear Model analysis. These results confirm the role of urban rodents as infection sources of spp., suggesting the need to implement public health measures to prevent the transmission of spp. and other zoonotic pathogens from rodents to humans. was not detected in this set of samples.