Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (2013) 108, 399-407

Aurélien Mercier, Madougou Garba, Henri Bonnabau, Mamadou Kane, Jean-Pierre Rossi, Marie-Laure Dardé and Gauthier Dobigny (2013)
Toxoplasmosis seroprevalence in urban rodents: a survey in Niamey, Niger
Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 108 (4), 399-407
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.
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Database assignments for author(s): Jean-Pierre Rossi

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
general biology - morphology - evolution

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Mus musculus		Niger
	Rattus rattus		Niger
	Mastomys natalensis		Niger
	Cricetomys gambianus		Niger
	Arvicanthis niloticus		Niger