Prevalence of E. bieneusi
We detected E. bieneusi in 15.8% (95/603) of the rodent samples,
including 18.7% (69/369) of the wild rats, 4.2% (1/24) of the
red-bellied squirrels, and 11.9% (25/210) of the farmed rodents (Table
2). Among the wild rats, lesser rice-field rats have the highest
prevalence rate of E. bieneusi (16/44, 36.4%), followed by Asian
house rats (31/134, 23.1%), Chinese white-bellied rats (6/33, 18.2%),
brown rats (8/56, 14.3%), Indo-Chinese forest rats (5/54, 9.3%) and
Edward’s long-tailed rats (3/38, 7.9%). None of the 10 Muridae species
were infected with E. bieneusi . Among the farmed rodents, the
rate of prevalence of E. bieneusi in bamboo rats (18/117, 15.4%)
was higher than that of the Asiatic brush-tailed porcupines (7/93,
7.5%). Only one of the 24 (4.2%) red-bellied squirrel was infected
with E. bieneusi .