Toxoplasmosis seroprevalence in urban rodents: a survey in Niamey, Niger

• Published in: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
• Main Authors: Aurelien Mercier, Madougou Garba, Henri Bonnabau, Mamadou Kane, Jean-Pierre Rossi, Marie-Laure Darde, Gauthier Dobigny
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ) 2013
• Subjects: Toxoplasma gondii; epidemiology; zoonotic disease; Africa; Sahel; Microbiology; QR1-502; Infectious and parasitic diseases; RC109-216; Rattus rattus
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0074-0276108042013002; https://doaj.org/article/1972cb6a6cd14f3e9a5bfc4921fce35c

A serological survey of Toxoplasma gondii was conducted on 766 domestic and peridomestic rodents from 46 trapping sites throughout the city of Niamey, Niger. A low seroprevalence was found over the whole town with only 1.96% of the rodents found seropositive. However, differences between species were important, ranging from less than 2% in truly commensal Mastomys natalensis, Rattus rattus and Mus musculus, while garden-associated Arvicanthis niloticus displayed 9.1% of seropositive individuals. This is in line with previous studies on tropical rodents - that we reviewed here - which altogether show that Toxoplasma seroprevalence in rodent is highly variable, depending on many factors such as locality and/or species. Moreover, although we were not able to decipher statistically between habitat or species effect, such a contrast between Nile grass rats and the other rodent species points towards a potentially important role of environmental toxoplasmic infection. This would deserve to be further scrutinised since intra-city irrigated cultures are extending in Niamey, thus potentially increasing Toxoplasma circulation in this yet semi-arid region. As far as we are aware of, our study is one of the rare surveys of its kind performed in Sub-Saharan Africa and the first one ever conducted in the Sahel.