Seroprevalence of Leptospirosis in Goat of Faria Parish, Miranda Municipality, Zulia State-Venezuela

To estimate the sero-prevalence of leptospirosis in goats, 550 sera samples were obtained from animals of 63 farms, distributed in 13 geographical areas within the Faria Parish of the Miranda Municipality, Zulia State-Venezuela The detection of antibodies, against leptospira was made through using the microscopic agglutination technique (MAT). To estimate the prevalence, the criterion of positive animals that showed 50% agglutination at a dilution of 1/100 was taken, against twelve leptospira serovars: L. icterohemerrogiae, L. copenhageni, L. javanica, L. canicola, L. pyrogenes, L. autumnalis, L. pomona, L. grippotyphosa, L. hebdomadis, L. sari, L. wolffi and L. hardjo. Overall prevalence was 83.1%. Higher prevalence serovars were: L. sari (51.4%), L. grippotyphosa (49.8%), L. wolffi (48.9%), L. hebdomadis (48.5%) and L. javanica (39.8%). Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics. In all the geographical areas, prevalence was more than 50% with higher values found in Santa Rosa (100%), Los Haticos (97.9%) and Las Verdes (93.2%). Only 16.9% of the goats tested showed antibodies against at least five different serovars. It was concluded that in the Faria Parish, caprine production system, leptospirosis is representing a serious public health problem. It is necessary to evaluate the impact of this disease in infertility, abortions and reduced milk production of goats and to identify risk factors that are contributing to the high prevalence of this disease.