Identification of cattle, buffaloes and rodents as reservoir animals of Leptospira in the District of Gampaha, Sri Lanka

Abstract

BackgroundLeptospirosis is an important emerging infectious disease in Sri Lanka. Rats are the most important reservoir of Leptospira but domestic and wild mammals may also act as important maintenance or accidental hosts. In Sri Lanka, knowledge of reservoir animals of leptospires is poor. The objective of this study was to identify potential reservoir animals of Leptospira in the District of Gampaha, Sri Lanka.FindingsBlood and kidney samples were collected from 38 rodents and mid-stream urine samples were randomly collected from 45 cattle and five buffaloes in the District of Gampaha. Kidney and urine samples were tested by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and serum samples were tested by the microscopic agglutination test (MAT). Of the 38 rodent kidney samples, 11% (4/38) were positive by real-time PCR. The prevalence of leptospiral carriage was 11% (3/26) and 8% (1/12) in female and male rodents, respectively. Three rodent serum samples were positive by MAT. Of the 50 cattle/buffalo urine samples tested, 10% (5/50) were positive by real-time PCR. The prevalence of leptospiral carriage was 9% (4/45) and 20% (1/5) in cattle and buffaloes, respectively.ConclusionResults of PCR and MAT showed that Leptospira were present in a significant proportion of the rodents and farm animals tested in this study and suggest that these (semi-) domestic animals form an infection reservoir for Leptospira. Therefore, there is a potential zoonotic risk to public health, most notably to farmers in this area.

Leptospira Detection in Cats in Spain by Serology and Molecular Techniques

“…For this reason, we included saprophytic strains (L. biflexa strain Patoc I, L. biflexa strain CH 11, and L. meyeri strain Veldrat Semarang 173) in our panel diagnostic, which can cross-react with the antibodies generated by some pathogenic serovars. Possible explanations for the fact that none of the cats with antibodies against pathogenic leptospires had antibodies against the saprophytic serovars included in our MAT panel, could be that they have not either specific cross-reactivity against the used saprophytic ones or because as it has been described previously, the saprophytic serovars, specifically serovar Patoc, has limited ability to detect cross-reactions with antibodies of past infections [47].…”

Diagnostic approach of anemia in ruminants

“…The red color of the supernatant after urine centrifugation either due to the presence of hemoglobin or myoglobin should be further differentiated by chemical analysis (Giannitti et al, 2014;Braun et al, 2008). Certain microorganisms can also be detected in urine employing either microscopy or molecular techniques (Denipitiya et al, 2017).…”

Utility of a modified silver staining technique for detection of Leptospira

“…Rodents, cattle, buffaloes, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and dogs are the most common reservoirs. [3][4][5] The disease is transmitted mainly by direct or indirect contact with water sources or soil contaminated with urine of infected animals. 6 Major life threatening complications of leptospirosis reported in recent outbreaks in Sri Lanka which include renal failure 7 , haemorrhage into most organs and tissues and multi organ failure.…”