EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY OF THE PERMISSIVITY OF THE WILD RAT (RATTUS-RATTUS) OF GUADELOUPE WITH REGARD TO SCHISTOSOMA-MANSONI - HYPOTHESIS ON THE ROLE OF THIS HOST IN THE DYNAMICS OF NATURAL HABITATS

  • 1 January 1980
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 37  (1) , 41-51
Abstract
Unlike the white laboratory rat, the wild rat (R. rattus) of Guadeloupe behaves as a permissive host with regard to S. mansoni, at least during a certain number of successive passages. The study of the host-parasite relationship demonstrated a certain number of fundamental differences in relation to the data furnished by the white rat; the worm recovery rate tested in the 4th week is more than twice as high as in the white rat (32 vs. 11%), the self cure phenomenon is of a lesser intensity than in the white rat since the former involves only 45% of the worm population present at 4 wk, the average size of adult schistosomes is greater in the black rat (4.2 vs. 3.62 mm), and from the 6th week onwards a transfer of adult worms from the mesenteric-bearing system towards the lungs is observed in R. rattus. Schistosomes reproduce normally in the black rat with the production of fertile eggs in stools. In certain stations in Guadeloupe (freshwater mangrove), the rat is able to contribute to the maintenance of a threshold of parasitosis indispensible to the circulation of the parasite in the foci of infection.