Rodents are known reservoir hosts for a number of pathogens that can spillover into humans and cause disease. These threats are likely to be elevated in informal urban settlements (i.e., slums), where rodent and human densities are often high, rodents live in close proximity to humans, and human knowledge of disease risks and access to health care is often limited. While recent research attention has focused on zoonotic risks posed by urban rodents in major cities around the world, informal urban settlements have received far less attention. Here we report on a study in which samples were collected from 195 commensal rodents and 124 febrile human patients in the Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya (one of the largest informal urban settlements in the world). Using immunofluorescence assays, samples were screened for antibodies against common rodent-borne zoonotic virus groups, namely orthopoxviruses, arenaviruses, and hantaviruses. We detected antibodies against orthopoxviruses in rodents (4.1% positive) and antibodies in humans against orthopoxviruses, arenaviruses, and hantaviruses (4.8%, 3.2%, and 8.1% positive, respectively). No rodents had antibodies against arenaviruses or hantaviruses. These results provide strong evidence for the circulation of zoonotic viruses in rodents and humans in Kibera urban settlement, but discordance between viruses detected in host groups indicates that other species or taxa may also serve as reservoirs for these zoonotic viruses or that humans testing positive could have been exposed outside of the Kibera settlement. More broadly, this study highlights the threat posed by zoonotic viruses in informal urban settlements and the need to mitigate human exposure risks.
Keywords: developing setting; slum; spillover; urban pathogens; zoonosis.