Leptospirosis in the Animal—Human-Ecosystem Interface

Dear Colleagues,

Leptospirosis is a zoonosis of epidemic prone that is among the top 10 events of infectious nature (top 10 infectious hazard) recorded globally in the events management system that supports the International Health Regulations/WHO. Outbreaks of leptospirosis are often reported after heavy rainfall and flooding, mostly affecting vulnerable communities. Indirect exposure through water and soil contaminated by urine from infected animals is the most common route of exposure of this worldwide disease, which is a perfect example of the animal-human-ecosystem interface in the One Health framework.
There is a wide variety of settings and unique scenarios that may contribute to the emergency of leptospirosis events, such as populated urban centers many times affected by natural disasters to remote rural areas with lack of access to drinking water and sanitation, where close contact between humans and animals are often common. Leptospirosis has been a neglected disease for many years; even though WHO estimates more than 500,000 human cases a year worldwide.  Currently, with the evidence of outbreaks all year around in different parts of the world, governments are including leptospirosis in their programs, and networks of multidisciplinary experts are putting together efforts to developed operational research to better understand the drivers of this disease, as well as developing new tools for diagnostic tests and vaccines, studying the economic impact in animal production and others key aspects to support communities, countries and organizations to fight leptospirosis.
This special issue aims to provide an integrated vision within the animal-human-ecosystem interface in order to orient knowledge about the prediction, detection, prevention and outbreak response of leptospirosis.

Dr. Maria Cristina Schneider
Dr. Daniel Forsin Buss
Dr. Michel Jancloes
Guest Editors

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