Maternal Leishmania infantum infection status has significant impact on leishmaniasis in offspring

Visceral Leishmaniasis is a deadly disease caused by Leishmania infantum, endemic in more than 98 countries across the globe. Although the most common means of transmission is via a sand fly vector, there is growing evidence that vertical transmission may be critical for maintaining L. infantum infe...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS neglected tropical diseases 2019-02, Vol.13 (2), p.e0007058-e0007058
Main Authors: Toepp, Angela J, Bennett, Carolyne, Scott, Benjamin, Senesac, Reid, Oleson, Jacob J, Petersen, Christine A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biology and Life Sciences
Cohorts
Control
Countries
Disease transmission
Dogs
EDTA
Endemic species
Epidemiology
Health aspects
Health promotion
Health risks
Hunting
Infection
Infections
Infectious diseases
Insecticides
Leishmania
Leishmania infantum
Leishmaniasis
Medicine and Health Sciences
Morbidity
Offspring
Parasites
Parasitic diseases
Patient outcomes
Population
Prevention
Public health
Risk analysis
Risk factors
Studies
Transmission
Tropical diseases
Vector-borne diseases
Visceral leishmaniasis
Zoonoses
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Visceral Leishmaniasis is a deadly disease caused by Leishmania infantum, endemic in more than 98 countries across the globe. Although the most common means of transmission is via a sand fly vector, there is growing evidence that vertical transmission may be critical for maintaining L. infantum infection within the reservoir, canine, population. Vertical transmission is also an important cause of infant morbidity and mortality particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. While vertical transmission of visceralizing species of Leishmania has been reported around the globe, risk factors associated with this unique means of Leishmania transmission have not been identified therefore interventions regarding this means of transmission have been virtually non-existent. Furthermore, the basic reproductive number, (R0), or number of new L. infantum infections that one infected mother or dam can cause has not been established for vertical transmission, also hampering the ability to assess the impact of this means of transmission within reservoir of human hosts. Canine Leishmaniosis (CanL) is enzootic within a U.S. hunting dog population. CanL is transmitted within this population via transplacental transmission with no reported vector transmission, despite many repeated attempts to find infected sand flies associated with these dogs and kennels. This population with predominantly, if not solely, vertical transmission of L. infantum was used to evaluate the critical risk factors for vertical transmission of Leishmania and establish the R0 of vertical L. infantum infection. Evaluation of 124 animals born to eighteen dams diagnostically positive for infection with L. infantum showed that there was a 13.84x greater chance of being positive for L. infantum within their lifetime if the mother was also positive within her lifetime (RR: 13.84, 95% CI: 3.54-54.20, p-value:
ISSN:1935-2735
1935-2727
1935-2735
DOI:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007058