Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 May;92(5):979-81.
doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.14-0751. Epub 2015 Mar 23.

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

Carole Eldin  1 , Aba Mahamat  1 , Felix Djossou  1 , Didier Raoult  2
Affiliations

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

Carole Eldin et al. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2015 May.

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.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Representation of monthly rainfall (mm), relative humidity (%/10), and number of Q fever cases per month between 2008 and 2012.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Left: representation of number of cases of Q fever per month in red (all years pooled) and number of births of the three-toed sloth per month between 1994 and 1995 (circles). Right: Graphic representation of the correlation coefficient value between the two variables at different lags (months).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Epelboin L, Chesnais C, Boullé C, Drogoul A-S, Raoult D, Djossou F, Mahamat A. Q fever pneumonia in French Guiana: prevalence, risk factors, and prognostic score. Clin Infect Dis Off Publ Infect Dis Soc Am. 2012;55:67–74. - PubMed
    1. Eldin C, Mahamat A, Demar M, Abboud P, Djossou F, Raoult D. Q fever in French Guiana. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2014;91:771–776. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gardon J, Héraud JM, Laventure S, Ladam A, Capot P, Fouquet E, Favre J, Weber S, Hommel D, Hulin A, Couratte Y, Talarmin A. Suburban transmission of Q fever in French Guiana: evidence of a wild reservoir. J Infect Dis. 2001;184:278–284. - PubMed
    1. Tissot-Dupont H, Amadei M-A, Nezri M, Raoult D. Wind in November, Q fever in December. Emerg Infect Dis. 2004;10:1264–1269. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Davoust B, Marié J-L, Pommier de Santi V, Berenger J-M, Edouard S, Raoult D. Three-toed sloth as putative reservoir of Coxiella burnetii, Cayenne, French Guiana. Emerg Infect Dis. 2014;20:1760–1761. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources