Objective: This short study describes the occurrence of pathogenic Leptospira spp. in two major wet markets in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia.
Materials and Methods: 30 rodents (20 rats and 10 shrews) were caught in 2 wet markets, and a postmortem was performed to extract both kidneys. Molecular diagnosis via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was conducted to detect leptospiral DNA using universal and pathogenic Leptospira primers, respectively.
Results: The results showed that 20/28 (72%) rat samples were detected positive for Leptospira spp, and all shrews were negative. Further sequencing analysis identified L. interrogans and L. borgpetersenii as the most frequently Leptospirosis species from kidney samples.
Conclusions: The presented study here sheds light on the presence of pathogenic leptospires har¬boring the rat population in both wet markets in Kelantan, which presents a great public health risk to wet market workers and visitors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.