Publications (3)5.9 Total impact
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Article: Epidemiological trends for human plague in Madagascar during the second half of the 20th century: a survey of 20,900 notified cases.
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ABSTRACT: To describe the principal characteristics and epidemiological trends for human plague in modern times based on the largest reported series of cases from the highly active Malagasy focus. We used a file of 20,900 notified cases of suspected plague, 4,473 of which were confirmed or probable, to carry out a statistical analysis of incidence and mortality rates and associated factors for 5-year periods from 1957 to 2001. Our analysis of trends showed (1) an increase in the incidence rate and the number of districts affected, (2) an increase in the proportion of bubonic forms (64.8-96.8%) at the expense of the pneumonic forms (35.2-3.2%) more frequent in elderly subjects and (3) a decrease in case fatality rate (CFR, 55.7-20.9%) associated with five factors: clinical form, season, province, urban/rural and period considered. The median age of patients was 14 years and more men than women were affected. Since the end of the 1980s, the incidence of plague in Madagascar has increased in both rural and urban areas, because of multiple socioeconomic and environmental factors. However, the plague mortality rate has tended to decrease, together with the frequency of pneumonic forms, because of the strengthening of control measures. Making dipstick tests for the rapid diagnosis of human cases and epizootics in rats available for health structures should make it possible to raise the alarm and to react rapidly, thereby further decreasing morbidity and CFR.Tropical Medicine & International Health 09/2006; 11(8):1228-37. · 2.80 Impact Factor -
Article: Current epidemiology of human plague in Madagascar
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ABSTRACT: From 1996 to 1998, 5 965 patients with suspected plague were identified in 38 districts of Madagascar (40% of the total population are exposed). Using standard bacteriology, 917 of them were confirmed or presumptive (C + P) cases. However, more than 2 000 plague cases could be estimated using F1 antigen assay. Two out of the 711 Yersinia pestis isolates tested were resistant to chloramphenicol and to ampicillin (both isolates found in the harbour of Mahajanga). Urban plague (Mahajanga harbour and Antananarivo city) accounted for 37.4% of the C + P cases. Bubonic plague represented 97.2% of the cases, and the lethality rate was still high (20%). In comparing the exposed population, plague was more prevalent in males (M:F sex ratio 1.3:1) and patients under 20 years (2.7% babies under two years). Buboes were mainly localised in the inguinal/femoral regions (55.8%). The epidemiological risk factors are discussed.Microbes and Infection 02/2000; · 3.10 Impact Factor -
Article: Identification of putative palytoxin as the cause of clupeotoxism
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ABSTRACT: In 1994 in Madagascar a woman died after eating a sardine, Herklotsichthys quadrimaculatus. Two heads removed, respectively, from a toxic and a nontoxic fish before cooking were retrieved, kept frozen, and used for toxin analysis. The causative toxin was identified as palytoxin or its analogs based on its cytotoxicity, delayed hemolysis, neutralization with an anti-palytoxin antibody, chromatographic properties on different columns, and MS data. The gill and esophagus of the fish contained large amount of bottom sediments indicating that the fish had fed on the bottom and thus probably obtained the toxin from a benthic organism. The benthic dinoflagellate Ostreopsis siamensis that produces palytoxin and its analogs was inferred as the probable toxin source. This is the first study to shed light on clupeotoxism, a highly fatal form of human intoxication due to ingestion of clupeoid fish.Toxicon.
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2006
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The Pasteur Institute of Madagascar
Antananarivo, Analamanga, Madagascar
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