Abstract:

Background and objectives: leptospirosis is one of the neglected tropical zoonotic disease of public health importance affecting humans, domestic animals and wildlife in both developed and developing countries including Tanzania. It is one of the common causes of mortalities and morbidities among individuals with direct or close contact with the animal reservoirs. Despite being the common in Tanzania, there is limited information on the seroprevalence of leptospira spp. Among dog keepers in Mwanza city Tanzania. This study was designed to determine the seroprevalence and associated factors of leptospira spp and associated factors among dog keepers in Mwanza city Tanzania.

Methods: A cross sectional community based study involving 205 dog keepers was conducted between May and July 2018 in Mwanza city Tanzania. Sociodemographic and other relevant information were collected by using structured data collection tool. Detection of leptospira antibodies was done by using microscopic agglutination test (MAT). Data was analyzed using STATA-12 software as per project study objectives.

Results: the median age of the study participants was 26 (IQR 17-40) years. Overall seroprevalence of leptospiral antibodies was found to be 33/205(16%, 95%CI: 11.0-21.1). Among the two serovars tested the most prevalent serovars was Sokoine which was detected in 15.12% of the study participants. By multivariate logistics regression analysis, only having tertiary education (OR: 0.24, 95% CI: 0 07-0.84, P=0.026) was significantly found to protect individuals from being leptospiral seropositive.

Conclusion: A considerable proportion of dog keepers in Mwanza city have leptospiral antibodies with serovar Sokoine being the commonest. Having tertiary education was significantly protected dog keepers from being leptospiral seropositive.