BOVINE LEPTOSPIROSIS. MOST FREQUENT SEROVARS IN BLOOD COLLECTIONS PERFORMED BETWEEN 1984 TO 1997 FROM HERDS OF 21 BRAZILIAN STATES

It were presented most frequent serovars of leptospires detected through Microscopic Agglutination Technique (MAT), between 1984 to 1997 in 31,325 bovines, from 1920 farms of 540 municipalities and 21 brazilian states. The MAT was conducted with a collection of 24 serovars: australis, bratislava, autumnalis, butembo, castellonis, bataviae, canicola, whitcombi, cinoptery, grippotyphosa, hebdomadis, copenhageni, icterohaemorrhagiae, javanica, panama, pomona, pyrogenes, hardjo, wolffi, shermani, tarassovi, sentot, andamana and patoc. The MAT cut off was the serum dilution at 1:100 and the tittles were obtained with a geometric serie of doble dilutions. The distribution of animals examined by estado were: SP (52,8%), MG (14,3%), RS (7,8%), PR (5,34%), RJ (3,66%), GO (3,34%), MS (2,81%), BA (2.10%), SC, (1,65%), MA (1.18%), ES (0,86%), PA (0.97%), MT (0,75%), PI (0.71%), CE (0.38%), DF (0,31%), TO (0.31%), AL (0.32%), PB (0.25%), RN (0.11%) e RO (0.07%). Thirty six and seven percent of serum samples were examined between 1984 to 1994 and 63,3% after Januray of 1995. The results showed that 84,1% of the farms; 94.18% of the municipalities and all of the states examined, it was found at least one positive animal. The proportion of reactors to at least one leptospira serovar presented the average of 37.94%. with flutuations between 25.2 to 38.3% in the States of SC, CE, PR, DF, SP and PA; from 40.7 to 58.4% PB, TO, RJ, MG, GO, RO, RN, PI, MA, AL. And higher than 61,0% in BA, ES, MS e MT. In each herd the most frequent serovar were that one wich presented the hightest title, when in the same serum sample it was found the same tittle for two or more serovars, this sample was removed from this analysis. The serovar hardjo was the most frequent in RN and DF; hardjo and wolffi in MA; AL; BA, ES, MS, SP, RJ and GO; hardjo and grippotyphosa in TO; hardjo, castellonis and patoc in SC; hardjo, wolffi and grippotyphosa in CE; hardjo, wolffi and pomona in PR and MG; hardjo, wolffi and pyrogenes, RS and RO; hardjo, icterohaemorrhagiae and pyrogenes, PB; hardjo, wolffi and hebdomadis in PI

KEY WORDS:
Retrospective analysis; serology; agglutination; leptospirosis; Leptospires; serovars.