Severe Leptospirosis in Non-tropical Areas: a Nationwide, Multicentre, Retrospective Study in French ICUs

Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonosis. The infection is acquired through contact with animal urine on contaminated soil. It is an important remerging infectious disease because of its increasing incidence. Leptospirosis is most common in tropical and rural settings but its incidence has been constantly increasing for the past ten years in Metropolitan France. Most of the cases are asymptomatic or sparsely symptomatic, but some patients develop severe leptospirosis (6% to 59%), requiring hospitalisation in intensive care units. The mortality of the disease is between 3,6% to 13%, and up to 48% for the severe leptospirosis.

Only few studies exist on severe leptospirosis and none major multicentre on leptospirosis in intensive care units in Europe. Therefore, the investigators have decided to carry out this studies. The investigators conduct a retrospective multi centric study in metropolitan France in order to identify the characteristic, the treatments and the prognostic factors associated with mortality of sever leptospirosis.