Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils

摘要

BackgroundLeptospirosis is an important re-emerging infectious disease that affects humans worldwide. Infection occurs from indirect environment-mediated exposure to pathogenic leptospires through contaminated watered environments. The ability of pathogenic leptospires to persist in the aqueous environment is a key factor in transmission to new hosts. Hence, an effort was made to detect pathogenic leptospires in complex environmental samples, to genotype positive samples and to assess leptospiral viability over time.