BACKGROUND Leptospirosis is becoming a major public health threat in Sri Lanka as well as in other countries. We designed a case control study to determine the factors associated with local transmission of leptospirosis in Sri Lanka, in order to identify major modifiable determinants of leptospirosis. The purpose of this paper is to describe the study protocol in detail prior to the publishing ...

Leptospirosis is a globally distributed zoonosis of major public health importance and is associated with severe disease manifestations such as acute renal failure and pulmonary haemorrhage syndrome. However, the extent to which the pathogenesis of leptospirosis mimics sepsis caused by Gram-negative bacteria remains unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum levels of nitric oxide (NO...

To determine the proportion of fevers caused by leptospirosis, we obtained serum specimens and epidemiologic and clinical data from patients in Galle, Sri Lanka, March-October 2007. Immunoglobulin M ELISA was performed on paired serum specimens to diagnose acute (seroconversion or 4-fold titer rise) or past (titer without rise) leptospirosis and seroprevalence (acute). We compared (individually...

INTRODUCTION Dengue and leptospirosis are two febrile illnesses of great clinical and epidemiological importance in Brazil. Their significant degree of symptomatic similarity makes clinical diagnosis difficult. OBJECTIVE To diagnose leptospirosis differentially in patients with clinically suspected dengue. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this study, 86 patients with clinically suspected dengue und...

OBJECTIVE To characterize current leptospirosis reporting practices in the Americas. METHODS Information was collected from the official websites of national ministries of health from the Americas region and two international organizations; personal communications; and three international morbidity databases. For all sources other than the morbidity databases, the review was limited to offici...

BACKGROUND Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and leptospirosis are seasonal rodent-borne infections in the Republic of Korea (Korea). The occurrences of HFRS and leptospirosis are influenced by climatic variability. However, few studies have examined the effects of local climatic variables on the development of these infections. The purpose of this study was to estimate the effect of...

Leptospirosis is the most important zoonosis in the world. Patients are typically young men. Several factors are involved in acute kidney injury (AKI) in leptospirosis, including direct nephrotoxic action of the leptospira, hyperbilirubinemia, rhabdomyolysis and hypovolemia. The major histological findings are acute interstitial nephritis and acute tubular necrosis. Leptospirosis-induced AKI is...

S ir, I read the article “Mildly Elevated Transaminases: Excellent diagnostic c l u e f o r A n i c t e r i c L e p t o s p i r o s i s ” with interest.1 Leptospirosis can be diagnosed only by laboratory tests as clinical features are non specific. But the laboratory tests are complex and hence definite guidelines for diagnosis of human leptospirosis is necessary. I fully agree that microscopic...

BACKGROUND The incidence of leptospirosis, a neglected zoonotic disease, is uncertain in Tanzania and much of sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in scarce data on which to prioritize resources for public health interventions and disease control. In this study, we estimate the incidence of leptospirosis in two districts in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We conduc...

BACKGROUND Leptospirosis is a potentially fatal bacterial zoonosis that is endemic throughout the tropics and may be misdiagnosed as dengue. Delayed hospital admission of leptospirosis patients is associated with increased mortality. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS During a concurrent dengue/leptospirosis epidemic in Puerto Rico in 2010, suspected dengue patients that tested dengue-negative we...