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Volume 12, Number 12—December 2006
Dispatch

Mastomys natalensis and Lassa Fever, West Africa

Emilie Lecompte*Comments to Author , Elisabeth Fichet-Calvet†, Stéphane Daffis*‡, Kékoura Koulémou§, Oumar Sylla§, Fodé Kourouma§, Amadou Doré§, Barré Soropogui§, Vladimir Aniskin¶, Bernard K. Allali#, Stéphane Kouassi Kan#, Aude Lalis†, Lamine Koivogui§, Stephan Günther**, Christiane Denys†, and Jan ter Meulen*††
Author affiliations: *Philipps University Institute of Virology, Marburg, Germany; †Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France; ‡Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA; §Projet de Recherches sur les Fièvres Hémorragiques en Guinée, Conakry, Guinea; ¶Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Moscow, Russia; #Institut Pasteur d'Abidjan, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; **Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany; ††Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands

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Figure 1

Map of Guinea showing the location of the 18 trapping sites (small circles). Sites where only Mastomys erythroleucus or M. natalensis were trapped are shaded in gray and black, respectively. Sites where both species were captured are hatched, and sites where no Mastomys were caught are marked with a dash. The human Lassa virus seroprevalence in these areas is indicated by the size of the sectors of the larger circles shaded black (11), gray (12), or hatched (13). The asterisk denotes the Madina

Figure 1. Map of Guinea showing the location of the 18 trapping sites (small circles). Sites where only Mastomys erythroleucus or M. natalensis were trapped are shaded in gray and black, respectively. Sites where both species were captured are hatched, and sites where no Mastomys were caught are marked with a dash. The human Lassa virus seroprevalence in these areas is indicated by the size of the sectors of the larger circles shaded black (11), gray (12), or hatched (13). The asterisk denotes the Madina Oula refugee camp on the border with Sierra Leone, where human seroprevalence was high (11), with 23% of the Mastomys Lassa virus antigen or antibody positive (9). In close localities, no Lassa virus–positive Mastomys were found (9).

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