Ecoepidemiology of leptospirosis in the urban slums of Brazil

新出现和再出现的感染现已被广泛认为是对人类健康的紧迫和日益严重的全球威胁。这一点在城市贫民窟尤为重要，那里的人通常拥挤不堪，往往天生脆弱，并与动物和环境感染宿主生活在一起。钩端螺旋体病是一种由老鼠传播的螺旋体病原体引起的人畜共患疾病，随着贫民窟在世界范围内迅速扩大，钩端螺旋体病已成为一个重要的卫生问题。在巴西等国家，每年在雨季期间，贫民窟社区都会发生大规模流行病。这些暴发与危及生命的表现有关，如肺出血综合征（LPHS），其病死率为50%。到2025年，世界贫民窟人口将翻一番，达到20亿，钩端螺旋体病的负担将继续增加。因此，我们需要解决我们在了解钩端螺旋体病传播动态方面的重大差距，以便能够确定新的和知情的预防战略，并在贫民窟社区有效实施。

PROJECT SUMMARY Emerging and re-emerging infections are now widely acknowledged to be an urgent and growing global threat to human health. Nowhere is this more important than in urban slums, where humans are typically crowded, often inherently vulnerable, and live in close proximity with animal and environmental reservoirs of infection. Leptospirosis, a zoonotic disease caused by a spirochetal agent transmitted by rats, has emerged as an important health problem as slum settlements have expanded rapidly worldwide. In countries such as Brazil, large epidemics occur each year in slum communities during seasonal periods of heavy rainfall. These outbreaks are associated with life-threatening manifestations such as pulmonary haemorrhage syndrome (LPHS), for which case fatality is >50%. The burden of leptospirosiswili continue to increase as the world's slum population doubles to two billion by 2025. We therefore need to address critical gaps in our understanding of the transmission dynamics of leptospirosis such that novel and informed strategies for prevention can be identified and effectively implemented in slum communities.