1 A cross-sectional epidemiological study of domestic animals related to human 2 leptospirosis cases in Nicaragua 3 Authors 4 Byron J. Floresa, Tania Pérez-Sánchezb, Héctor Fuertesb, Jessica Sheleby-Eliasa, José 5 Luis Múzquizb, William Jiróna, Christianne Duttmanna, Nabil Halaihelb. 6 7 a Department of Animal Health, School of Veterinary Medicine, Universidad Nacional 8 Autónoma de Nicaragua-León, Carretera a la Ceiba 1 Km al Este, León, Nicaragua. 9 b Department of Animal Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences. Universidad de 10 Zaragoza, Miguel Servet 177, 50013, Zaragoza, Spain. 11 12 Please address any correspondence to Dr. Byron José Flores Somarriba at 13
[email protected] 14 15 16 17 18 Abbreviations 19 Domestic animals (DA), Ministry of Health (MINSA, from its Spanish acronym), Pan 20 American Health Organization (PAHO), Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT), 21 confidence intervals (CI) and Chi square test (X2). 22 1 23 ABSTRACT 24 Leptospirosis is one of the most extended zoonosis worldwide and humans become 25 infected most commonly through contact with the urine of carrier animals, either 26 directly or via contaminated water or soil. The aim in this study was to analyse the 27 epidemiological behaviour of Leptospira spp., from domestic animals around the sites 28 of human leptospirosis cases in Nicaragua, from 2007 through 2013. We report the 29 results of a cross-sectional epidemiological study with a non-probability sampling of 30 blood (n=3050) and urine (n=299) from Domestic Animals (DA) around the sites of 31 human leptospirosis cases in Nicaragua. We analysed data obtained through 32 Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT), in-vitro culture, real time PCR and sequencing 33 of lfb1 locus.