Human Leptospirosis on Reunion Island: Past and Current Burden

Frédéric Pagès, Dominique Polycarpe, Jean-Sébastien Dehecq, Mathieu Picardeau, Nadège Caillère, Marie-Christine Jaffar-Bandjee, Alain Michault and Laurent Filleul
Additional contact information
Frédéric Pagès: Regional Office (Cire) of the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (Institut de veille sanitaire), Réunion 97400, France
Dominique Polycarpe: Public Health Authority (Agence de santé Océan Indien ARS OI), Réunion 97400, France
Jean-Sébastien Dehecq: Public Health Authority (Agence de santé Océan Indien ARS OI), Réunion 97400, France
Mathieu Picardeau: National Reference Centre for Leptospirosis (NRC), Institut Pasteur, Paris 75015, France
Nadège Caillère: Regional Office (Cire) of the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (Institut de veille sanitaire), Réunion 97400, France
Marie-Christine Jaffar-Bandjee: Biology/Microbiology/Virology/Biochemistry Units, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU North Felix-Guyon), Saint-Denis 97405, France
Alain Michault: Laboratoire de Bactériologie-Parasitologie-Virologie-Hygiène, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU Sud), St. Pierre Reunion Island 97448, France
Laurent Filleul: Regional Office (Cire) of the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (Institut de veille sanitaire), Réunion 97400, France

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Since 1953, leptospirosis has been recognized as a public health problem on Reunion Island. In 2004, was implemented a specific surveillance system that included systematic reporting and the realization of environmental investigations around hospitalized cases. Here, we present the synthesis of historical data and the assessment of 9 years of leptospirosis surveillance. From 2004 to 2012, 414 hospitalized cases were reported. Cases of leptospirosis occurred mostly during the rainy season from December to May. Approximately 41% of infections occurred at home, 12% of infections occurred during aquatic leisure and 5% of cases were linked to professional activities. Furthermore, for 41% of cases, the place of infection could not be determined due to the accumulation of residential and non-residential exposure. Most of the cases of leptospirosis were linked to rural areas or traditional, rural occupations. We did not observe a shift to recreational leptospirosis as described in some developed countries. According to the new surveillance system, the number of reported cases has regularly increased since 2004. This situation is in part due to the improvement of the system in the first years but also to a real increase in the number of detected cases due to the introduction of molecular methods and to increased biological investigation into the Dengue-like syndrome by medical practitioners on the island since the Chikungunya crisis in 2006. This increase is probably due to surveillance and diagnosis biases but need to be carefully monitored. Nevertheless, the possibility of an outbreak is always present due to climatic events, such as after the “hyacinth” hurricane in 1980.

Keywords: leptospirosis; epidemiology; surveillance; human; Reunion Island; Indian Ocean (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/1/968/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/1/968/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:1:p:968-982:d:32051

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().