Hunting of peridomestic rodents and consumption of their meat as possible risk factors for rodent-to-human transmission of Lassa virus in the Republic of Guinea.
In this population-based study, we correlated possible risk factors for rodent-to-human transmission of Lassa virus with markers of Lassa fever in two different regions of the Republic of Guinea (Prefectures of Pita and Gueckedou). Antibody prevalence was 2.6% (6 of 232) in Pita compared with 14.0% (105 of 751) in Gueckedou, with up to 35.0% seropositivity in selected villages of the higher prevalence area. We observed three major risk factors in Gueckedou favoring Lassa virus transmission: rodent infestation was much higher, food was more often stored uncovered and most strikingly, peridomestic rodents were hunted as a protein source by 91.5% of the population as opposed to 0% in Pita. To control for the confounding effects of differences in rodent infestation and food storage, rodent consumption was analyzed as a risk factor for transmission of Lassa virus comparing rodent consumers (RC) and nonconsumers (NC) in Gueckedou only: 14.6% of RC had Lassa virus antibodies versus 7.4% of NC (P = 0.1) and 23.0% of RC reported a history of a febrile illness with hearing loss (the most common sequel of Lassa fever) versus 6.1% of NC (P = 0.003).
Ter Meulen
J
J
Department of Virology, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.
Lukashevich
I
I
Sidibe
K
K
Inapogui
A
A
Marx
M
M
Dorlemann
A
A
Yansane
M L
ML
Koulemou
K
K
Chang-Claude
J
J
Schmitz
H
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005516:Food Microbiology; D016701:Guinea / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007835:Lassa Fever / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D007836:Lassa virus / Q000276:immunology; D008297:Male; D008460:Meat / Q000821:virology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009115:Muridae; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012377:Rodentia
D000914:Antibodies, Viral