Seroprevalence of leptospirosis among captive Asian elephants in Kerala, India- a short communication

Leptospirosis is an infectious disease of zoonotic significance, caused by distinct members of the genus Leptospira, with a broad spectrum of hosts, including domestic and wild animals. The present paper reports the seroprevalence of leptospirosis among captive Asian elephants in Kerala. Whole blood samples were collected from fifty, apparently healthy captive elephants from different districts of Kerala state. The serum was separated from the whole blood and subjected to the Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT) for detection of antibodies to different serovars of Leptospira. The test was carried out using actively grown cultures of twelve common leptospiral serovars. Out of the total of fifty serum samples screened by MAT, 19 samples (38 per cent) showed a positive reaction with antibody titres in a 1:200 dilution. The prevalent serovars were Pomona, Icterohaemorrhagiae, Hebdomadis, Grippotyphosa and Canicola, and the highest prevalence was noticed for the serovar Pomona. The positive results indicated the presence of infection or the previous exposure of captive elephants to leptospiral antigens. The high rate of prevalence of leptospiral antibodies in captive elephants warrants the monitoring of these animals for clinical disease and adopting the necessary control strategies for preventing this re-emerging zoonotic disease.