engleski

Incidence of leptospiral antibodies in horses

The study was conducted during the ten years period. A total of 10327 blood samples of horses were included. The blood sampling was performed according to the current legislation. Results were collected to establish the incidence of leptospiral antibodies in the horse population. Antibody titer levels against serovars grippotyphosa, icterohaemorrhagiae, pomona, sejroe, canicola and australis were determined using microscopic agglutination test (MAT) with live antigens. A total of 1717 positive reactions (16.63%) with a minimum serum dilution of 1:100 against one or more of in MAT used pathogen serovars of Leptospira interrogans were observed. The predominant serovar was grippotyphosa, reactive on 1121 samples (64.28%). Antibodies against sv. icterohaemorrhagiae were detected in 465 cases (26.66%) and 7.63% of samples were positive to sv .pomona followed by reactions against sv. sejroe in 0.75%, sv. canicola in 0.57% and sv. australis in 0.11% of all established positive reactions. Titers to more than one serovar were found in several samples. There was no reported history of leptospirosis related clinical symptoms. Age is frequently reported to be significantly associated with positive titers. Several studies show the increase of seropositive animals with aging having a greater chance of being naturally exposed to pathogen leptospires. But in our study we found the majority of positive animals in younger animals. For several animals data of the age were not available. From table 2 and figure 1 it is clear that the majority of horses with specific antibodies to one of the tested serovars was between 6 and 10 years of age followed by the group of animals at the age up to five years. These groups of animals are more frequently in trade, fairs and races. We assume this could be the reason for a greater possibility of infection. The established prevalence of pathogen serovars, which differs from the reports from several other countries was in correlation with the maintenance of strains in Slovenia.

horses; diseases; leptospirosis

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