etection of Leishmania in medullary tissue of bats and rodents that inhabit an endemic area for canine leishmaniasis in Corrientes, Argentina

Abstract

The problem of leishmaniasis in America lies in its complex and varied epidemiological aspects of presentation. Although in the City of Corrientes, domestic canines represent the main urban reservoir, the participation of other mammals in the urban transmission cycle is not known, however, it has already been proposed for other animal species in different urban areas worldwide. Based on previous work and knowledge about the high population of rodents and bats know the possible participation of these animal species in the epidemiological chain, detecting whether there is an active natural infection, its prevalence and identification of circulating species, applying detection techniques by molecular biology. Bone marrow samples were used, as it is a tissue with the main distribution pattern of visceral Leishmania. Captures of both animal species were made
in coincidence with areas of the city of Corrientes identified with high prevalence for canine 
leishmaniasis. From 90 captures, 82 samples were obtained (50 bats and 32 rodents) which were subjected to a generic Nested PCR for Leishmania sp, and those that were detectable, were subjected to two specific simple PCRs to identify Leihmania (V) braziliensis and L. (L) chagasi species. As a result, a high prevalence of 21.8% was obtained in rodent samples with the probability of playing the role of reservoirs, while for bats, although natural infection was detected, the prevalence found of 10% was not sufficient to consider this species as a possible reservoir, but possible putative hosts in special eco-epidemiological situations or disseminators of parasitosis.