SURVEY FOR LEPTOSPIROSIS ANTIBODIES IN SERA FROM WORK HORSES FROM ARAÇATUBA DISTRICT, STATE OF SÃO PAULO, BRAZILTheAraçatubaregion, in state ofSãoPaulo, has 38 townships, where beef cattle livestock is the most important economic activity. Associated with it, equine livestock designated to work the cattle, is increasing in number. Being rustic and with low value the zootecnical animais are not submitted to any kind of clinicai or epidemiological investigations. The purpose of this survey was to determine the prevalence of leptospiral antibodies in work horses in this region. A total of 1,166 serum samples were tested by microscopic agglutination test with 9 serovars, from 32 beeffarmers from randomly chosen townships. Of those, 31.2% gave positive responses, in titres variging from 100 to 400, rarely > 1,600. Grippotyphosa serovar was the most prevalent (33.6%), followed by serovar associations among grippotyphosa, canicola, icterohaemorrhagiae and pyrogenes. The drastic changing of the environmental conditions caused by the flooded lands after the Tietê river dam construction and also the settling from alcohol destilaries brought by increasing sugarcane cultivated areas, are probably responsible for the presence of such serovars in high prevalence, originally from wildlife species.
KEY WORDS:
Leptospirosis; horses; microscopic agluttination test