Abstract:
Leptospirosis, a disease more common in the tropics, can cause a life-threatening
multisystemic syndrome in humans and animals. Immunity, whether natural or vaccineinduced,
is serogroup-specific with the infecting serovars varying according to geographical
locality. In South Africa, in spite of the fact that the bacterin vaccine for some Leptospira
serovars is often used, there is no recent information on the incidence of canine
leptospirosis as well as the infecting serovar/s. The aim of this study, which was undertaken
on sera collected in 2008 and 2009 from both strays and owned dogs predominantly in the
coastal regions of South Africa, was to determine the presence of leptospiral antibodies to 15
serovars known to infect dogs. Of the 530 samples tested, 25 tested positive to 7 different
serovars with the microscopic agglutination test (MAT). Nine of the 25 samples tested positive
to more than one serovar. The 2 serovars most frequently represented were Canicola,
which reacted to 17 sera, and Pyrogenes, which reacted to 10 sera. Currently the only vaccines
available in South Africa in different combinations contain serovars Canicola,
Icterohaemorrhagiae, Pomona and Grippotyphosa. The results showed that the use of vaccines
containing serovar Canicola is still justifiable in certain regions of the country. However,
the presence of antibodies to serovar Pyrogenes in several dogs, pending a broader
investigation, indicates that this serovar should also be included in the range of Leptospira
vaccines for use in South Africa.
