Prevalence of antibodies against visceralizing Leishmania spp. in brown rats from Grenada, West Indies

Vet World Vol.11 September-2018 Article-19

Research Article

Veterinary World, 11(9): 1321-1325

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2018.1321-1325

Alexa Rosypal von Dohlen¹, Nautica Cheathem¹, Keshaw Tiwari², and Ravindra Nath Sharma²

1. Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, College of STEM, Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte, NC. USA.
2. Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, St. George's University, Grenada, West Indies.

Background and Aim: Leishmania spp. are known to cause disease in man and animals. Rats are considered important reservoir hosts and transmission takes place through the bite of female sand fly, Phlebotomus spp. To the best of our knowledge, there is no published information on Leishmania infection in rats in Grenada. This study was conducted to estimate the antibodies for visceralizing Leishmania spp. (VL) in rats (Rattus norvegicus) from Grenada.

Materials and Methods: A total of 146 brown rats (R. norvegicus) were trapped live from two parishes (St. George and St. David) in Grenada. Following anesthesia, blood was collected from the heart through thoracic puncture. The serum was collected after the centrifugation of blood. Serum was tested for antibodies to VL. with a commercially available immunochromatographic dipstick test which is licensed for use in animals and humans.

Results: The seroprevalence of antibodies against Leishmania spp. was found in 34 of 146 rats (23.3%; CI 95% from 16.70 to 30.99). No significant differences were found between sexes and young or adults. The prevalence between parishes (St. George and St. David) was also not significant.

Conclusion: The results show that rats (R. norvegicus) in Grenada are exposed to Leishmania spp. The rats could play an important role in the transmission of leishmaniasis to humans and other animals in Grenada. Keywords: brown rats, Grenada, leishmaniasis, prevalence, serum antibodies.

Keywords: brown rats, Grenada, leishmaniasis, prevalence, serum antibodies.

How to cite this article: von Dohlen AR, Cheathem N, Tiwari K, Sharma RN (2018) Prevalence of antibodies against visceralizing Leishmania spp. in brown rats from Grenada, West Indies, Veterinary World, 11(9): 1321-1325.

Received: 08-06-2018 Accepted: 14-08-2018 Published online: 24-09-2018

Corresponding author: Ravindra Nath Sharma E-mail: rsharma@sgu.edu

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2018.1321-1325

Copyright: von Dohlen, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.