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A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages

Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is a disseminated protozoan infection caused by Leishmania donovani that affects almost half a million people annually. In Northern Ethiopia, VL is common in migrant agricultural laborers returning from the lowland sesame fields of Metema and Humera. Recent VL foci have e...

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Autores principales: Kirstein, Oscar David, Skrip, Laura, Abassi, Ibrahim, Iungman, Tamara, Horwitz, Ben Zion, Gebresilassie, Araya, Spitzova, Tatiana, Waitz, Yoni, Gebre-Michael, Teshome, Volf, Petr, Hailu, Asrat, Warburg, Alon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5956276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29621537
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2018.04.005
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author Kirstein, Oscar David
Skrip, Laura
Abassi, Ibrahim
Iungman, Tamara
Horwitz, Ben Zion
Gebresilassie, Araya
Spitzova, Tatiana
Waitz, Yoni
Gebre-Michael, Teshome
Volf, Petr
Hailu, Asrat
Warburg, Alon
author_facet Kirstein, Oscar David
Skrip, Laura
Abassi, Ibrahim
Iungman, Tamara
Horwitz, Ben Zion
Gebresilassie, Araya
Spitzova, Tatiana
Waitz, Yoni
Gebre-Michael, Teshome
Volf, Petr
Hailu, Asrat
Warburg, Alon
author_sort Kirstein, Oscar David
collection PubMed
description Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is a disseminated protozoan infection caused by Leishmania donovani that affects almost half a million people annually. In Northern Ethiopia, VL is common in migrant agricultural laborers returning from the lowland sesame fields of Metema and Humera. Recent VL foci have emerged in resident rural populations near the town. In the current study, we evaluate multilevel entomological, epidemiological and ecological factors associated with infection and disease through fine-scale eco-epidemiological analyses in three villages. Satellite images showed that villages constructed in or close to vertisols, were likely to become endemic for VL. Vertisols or black-cotton soil, are characterized by high contents of smectitic clay minerals, which swell when hydrated and shrink upon desiccation, causing extensive deep cracking during the dry season. The population densities of Phlebotomus orientalis, the vector, were negatively correlated with distance from vertisols and persons living close to vertisols were more likely to be bitten by sand flies, as evidenced by sero-positivity to Ph. orientalis saliva. Apparent (albeit non-significant) clustering of VL cases and abundant asymptomatic infections close to vertisols, suggest anthroponotic transmission around houses located close to vertisols. Comparable rates of male and female volunteers, mostly under 15 years of age, were infected with L. donovani but a significantly higher proportion of males succumbed to VL indicating a physiological gender-linked male susceptibility. Our data suggest that the abundant infected persons with high parasitemias who remain asymptomatic, may serve as reservoir hosts for anthroponotic transmission inside villages. Only limited insights on the transmission dynamics of L. donovani were gained by the study of environmental factors such as presence of animals, house structure and vegetation cover.
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spelling pubmed-59562762018-07-01 A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages Kirstein, Oscar David Skrip, Laura Abassi, Ibrahim Iungman, Tamara Horwitz, Ben Zion Gebresilassie, Araya Spitzova, Tatiana Waitz, Yoni Gebre-Michael, Teshome Volf, Petr Hailu, Asrat Warburg, Alon Acta Trop Article Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is a disseminated protozoan infection caused by Leishmania donovani that affects almost half a million people annually. In Northern Ethiopia, VL is common in migrant agricultural laborers returning from the lowland sesame fields of Metema and Humera. Recent VL foci have emerged in resident rural populations near the town. In the current study, we evaluate multilevel entomological, epidemiological and ecological factors associated with infection and disease through fine-scale eco-epidemiological analyses in three villages. Satellite images showed that villages constructed in or close to vertisols, were likely to become endemic for VL. Vertisols or black-cotton soil, are characterized by high contents of smectitic clay minerals, which swell when hydrated and shrink upon desiccation, causing extensive deep cracking during the dry season. The population densities of Phlebotomus orientalis, the vector, were negatively correlated with distance from vertisols and persons living close to vertisols were more likely to be bitten by sand flies, as evidenced by sero-positivity to Ph. orientalis saliva. Apparent (albeit non-significant) clustering of VL cases and abundant asymptomatic infections close to vertisols, suggest anthroponotic transmission around houses located close to vertisols. Comparable rates of male and female volunteers, mostly under 15 years of age, were infected with L. donovani but a significantly higher proportion of males succumbed to VL indicating a physiological gender-linked male susceptibility. Our data suggest that the abundant infected persons with high parasitemias who remain asymptomatic, may serve as reservoir hosts for anthroponotic transmission inside villages. Only limited insights on the transmission dynamics of L. donovani were gained by the study of environmental factors such as presence of animals, house structure and vegetation cover. Elsevier 2018-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5956276/ /pubmed/29621537 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2018.04.005 Text en © 2018 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kirstein, Oscar David
Skrip, Laura
Abassi, Ibrahim
Iungman, Tamara
Horwitz, Ben Zion
Gebresilassie, Araya
Spitzova, Tatiana
Waitz, Yoni
Gebre-Michael, Teshome
Volf, Petr
Hailu, Asrat
Warburg, Alon
A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages
title A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages
title_full A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages
title_fullStr A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages
title_full_unstemmed A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages
title_short A fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages
title_sort fine scale eco-epidemiological study on endemic visceral leishmaniasis in north ethiopian villages
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5956276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29621537
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2018.04.005
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