Mercier A. auteur aut IRD Garba M. auteur aut IRD Bonnabau H. auteur aut IRD Kane M. auteur aut IRD Rossi J.P. auteur aut IRD Dardé M.L. auteur aut IRD Dobigny Gauthier auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf reformatted digital access A serological survey of Toxoplasma gondii was conducted on 766 domestic and peridomestic rodents from 46 trapping sites throughout the city of Niamey, Niger. A low seroprevalence was found over the whole town with only 1.96% of the rodents found seropositive. However, differences between species were important, ranging from less than 2% in truly commensal Mastomys natalensis, Rattus rattus and Mus musculus, while garden-associated Arvicanthis niloticus displayed 9.1% of seropositive individuals. This is in line with previous studies on tropical rodents - that we reviewed here - which altogether show that Toxoplasma seroprevalence in rodent is highly variable, depending on many factors such as locality and/or species. Moreover, although we were not able to decipher statistically between habitat or species effect, such a contrast between Nile grass rats and the other rodent species points towards a potentially important role of environmental toxoplasmic infection. This would deserve to be further scrutinised since intra-city irrigated cultures are extending in Niamey, thus potentially increasing Toxoplasma circulation in this yet semi-arid region. As far as we are aware of, our study is one of the rare surveys of its kind performed in Sub-Saharan Africa and the first one ever conducted in the Sahel. specialized Toxoplasma gondii epidemiology zoonotic disease Africa Sahel NIGER SAHEL 052 080 108 4 399-407 2013 0074-0276 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010060500 10.1590/0074-0276108042013002 0074-0276 [F B010060500] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010060500 https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers19-10/010060500.pdf IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2013-09-03 2019-11-07 fdi:010060500 fre