Abstract
Leptospirosis is one of the most common zoonotic infections worldwide, including in most livestock, some companion animals, horses, wildlife, and humans. Epidemiological estimation of its prevalence in all species is difficult due to the variety of clinical presentations and challenges regarding laboratory diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to measure the seroprevalence of leptospiral infection in Arabian horses kept in the largest breeding farms in Poland, representing over 15% of the Polish Arabian horse population. Leptospira antibodies were detected by MAT (cut-off 1:100) in 33.2% of serum samples (204 of 615 animals) (CI 95%: 29.6–37.0%), most frequently reacting with the serovar Grippotyphosa, similar to previous reports in populations of randomly selected horses. These results indicated high Leptospira seropositivity, thus, although any form of clinical leptospirosis is rare, it may be postulated that the leptospiral exposure is widespread.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 688 |
Journal | Pathogens |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding: The study was partially supported by a grant from National Science Centre on the basis of the decision No DEC-2011/03/B/NZ6/04682. The study was partly supported by the grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland, decision no. 9506/E-385/R/2018.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- Arabians
- Horse
- Leptospira
- Seroprevalence
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Immunology and Allergy
- Molecular Biology
- Immunology and Microbiology (all)
- Microbiology (medical)
- Infectious Diseases