title: Toxoplasmosis seroprevalence in urban rodents: a survey in Niamey, Niger.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Parasitologie-Mycologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Limoges, Unité Mixte de Recherche 1094, Neuroépidémiologie Tropicale, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Limoges, France. aurelien.mercier@pasteur.fr
authors.forename: Aurélien
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mercier
authors.forename: Madougou
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garba
authors.forename: Henri
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bonnabau
authors.forename: Mamadou
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kane
authors.forename: Jean-Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.forename: Marie-Laure
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Dardé
authors.forename: Gauthier
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dobigny
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000913:Antibodies, Protozoan / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009548:Niger / Q000453:epidemiology; D051381:Rats; D012376:Rodent Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012377:Rodentia; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies; D014122:Toxoplasma / Q000276:immunology*; D014124:Toxoplasmosis, Animal / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014505:Urban Population
chemical_list: D000913:Antibodies, Protozoan