Ricardo Tamara, Azócar-Aedo Lucía Isabel, Previtali María Andrea, Monti Gustavo
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Santa Fe, Argentina.
Dpto. de Ciencias Naturales, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias (FHUC), Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL), Santa Fe, Argentina.
Front Vet Sci. 2024 Feb 16;11:1301959. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1301959. eCollection 2024.
Leptospirosis is a neglected zoonotic disease transmitted by contact with the urine of animals infected with pathogenic species of the bacteria or by contact with environments contaminated with the bacteria. Domestic dogs and cats may act as reservoirs or as sentinels of environmental contamination with leptospires, posing a public health concern. There is a great diversity of leptospires, and one common way to classify them is into serogroups that provide some information on the host species they are associated with. The aims of this study were: (1) to quantitatively summarize the overall prevalence and serogroup-specific prevalence of antibodies against pathogenic leptospires in asymptomatic dogs and cats and (2) to identify environmental and host characteristics that may affect the prevalence. Three electronic databases and the reference lists of eligible articles were screened, for epidemiological studies conducted between the years 2012-2022. We estimated overall and serogroup-specific prevalence using three-level meta-analysis models and assessed potential sources of heterogeneity by moderator analysis and meta-regression. Eighty-four studies met the inclusion criteria (dog studies 66.7%, cat studies 26.2%, and both species 7.1%). There were significant differences between dogs and cats in the overall prevalence model ( < 0.001), but not in the serogroup-specific model (>0.05). In dogs, the prevalence of serogroup Canicola was significantly higher than the other pathogenic serogroups ( < 0.001), while in cats there were no significant differences among serogroups ( = 0.373). Moderator analysis showed that the prevalence of serogroup Grippotyphosa was significantly higher in stray/sheltered dogs than in domiciled dogs ( = 0.028). These results suggest that pathogenic serogroups associated with small mammals are circulating among asymptomatic pets and should be taken into account in the transmission cycle of leptospires, as well as in the standard MAT panel for diagnosis in dogs and cats. It also highlights the importance of including both dogs and cats as potential reservoirs when conducting eco-epidemiological studies in different geographical and ecological areas.
钩端螺旋体病是一种被忽视的人畜共患病，通过接触感染致病性钩端螺旋体细菌的动物尿液或接触被该细菌污染的环境传播。家犬和家猫可能充当钩端螺旋体环境污染的宿主或哨兵，引发公共卫生问题。钩端螺旋体种类繁多，一种常见的分类方法是分为血清群，这能提供一些关于它们所关联宿主物种的信息。本研究的目的是：（1）定量总结无症状犬猫中抗致病性钩端螺旋体抗体的总体流行率和血清群特异性流行率，以及（2）确定可能影响流行率的环境和宿主特征。检索了三个电子数据库以及符合条件文章的参考文献列表，以查找2012年至2022年间进行的流行病学研究。我们使用三级荟萃分析模型估计总体和血清群特异性流行率，并通过调节分析和元回归评估异质性的潜在来源。84项研究符合纳入标准（犬类研究占66.7%，猫类研究占26.2%，两种动物都有的研究占7.1%）。总体流行率模型中犬和猫之间存在显著差异（<0.001），但血清群特异性模型中无显著差异（>0.05）。在犬类中，犬型钩端螺旋体血清群的流行率显著高于其他致病性血清群（<0.001），而在猫类中，各血清群之间无显著差异（=0.373）。调节分析表明，犬型黄疸出血群钩端螺旋体血清群在流浪/收容犬中的流行率显著高于家养犬（=0.028）。这些结果表明，与小型哺乳动物相关的致病性血清群在无症状宠物中传播，在钩端螺旋体的传播循环以及犬猫诊断的标准显微凝集试验（MAT）检测组合中都应予以考虑。这也凸显了在不同地理和生态区域进行生态流行病学研究时，将犬和猫都视为潜在宿主的重要性。
