Rainfall and sloth births in may, Q fever in July, Cayenne, French Guiana

Carole Eldin; Aba Mahamat; Felix Djossou; Didier Raoult

doi:10.4269/ajtmh.14-0751

Rainfall and sloth births in may, Q fever in July, Cayenne, French Guiana

Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2015 May;92(5):979-81. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.14-0751. Epub 2015 Mar 23.

Authors

Carole Eldin¹, Aba Mahamat¹, Felix Djossou¹, Didier Raoult²

Affiliations

¹ URMITE, UMR CNRS 7278, IRD 198, INSERM U1095 Faculté de Médecine 27 Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille Cedex 5, France; Unité de Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales, Centre Hospitalier Andrée Rosemon, 2, rue des Flamboyants, BP 6006-97306 Cayenne Cedex, French Guiana.
² URMITE, UMR CNRS 7278, IRD 198, INSERM U1095 Faculté de Médecine 27 Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille Cedex 5, France; Unité de Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales, Centre Hospitalier Andrée Rosemon, 2, rue des Flamboyants, BP 6006-97306 Cayenne Cedex, French Guiana [email protected].

Abstract

Q fever in French Guiana is correlated with the rainy season. We found a 1- to 2-month lagged correlation between Q fever incidence and the number of births of three-toed sloth. This result strengthens the hypothesis that the three-toed sloth is the wild reservoir of Q fever in French Guiana.

MeSH terms

Animals
Coxiella burnetii
Disease Reservoirs*
French Guiana / epidemiology
Humans
Incidence
Q Fever / epidemiology*
Q Fever / microbiology
Rain
Seasons
Sloths / microbiology*