Seroprevalence of Leptospiral Antibodies in Canine Population in and around Namakkal

Abstract EN

Leptospirosis is a reemerging and a complex zoonotic bacterial disease, caused by pathogenic serovars of Leptospira interrogans.

A total of 124 sera samples of dogs belonging to different categories like vaccinated, unvaccinated-semiowned, and stray dogs were subjected to sampling.

Microscopic agglutination test (MAT) was conducted by using Leptospira culture.

Out of 42 vaccinated dogs, 24 (57%) were positive to one or more serovars.

Of the 24, 22 (52.3%), 11 (26.19%), 4 (9.5%), 1 (3%), and 2 (4.7%) were positive to icterohaemorrhagiae, canicola, pomona, grippotyphosa, and autumnalis, respectively.

Of the 48 unvaccinated semiowned dogs, 10 (28.8%) showed positive agglutination to one or more serovars.

Of the 10 samples, 7 (14.5%), 2 (4.1%), 3 (6.2%), 3 (6.2%), and 5 (10.2%) were positive to icterohaemorrhagiae, canicola, pomona, grippotyphosa, and autumnalis, respectively.

Among the 34 stray dogs, 12 showed positive agglutination to one or more leptospiral antibodies.

Of the 12 samples, 6 (17.6%) showed positive agglutination to icterohaemorrhagiae, 2 (5.8%) to canicola, 5 (14.7%) to pomona, 7 (20.5%) to grippotyphosa, and 5 (4.7%) to autumnalis.

This study emphasized the changing trends in the epidemiology of leptospirosis with higher prevalence of serovar L.

grippotyphosa in street dogs.