Serological study of the Leptospira spp. infection in sheep and goats slaughtered in the State of Paraíba, semiarid of Northeastern Brazil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/1679-0359.2016v37n2p819Keywords:
Adaptability, Goats, Leptospirosis, Sheep, Rusticity.Abstract
The aim of this survey was to determine the frequency of anti-Leptospira spp. antibodies in goats and sheep slaughtered in different slaughterhouses in the State of Paraiba, in the semi-arid region of Northeastern Brazil. Blood samples were collected from 500 goats and 500 sheep randomly selected. To verify the presence of anti-Leptospira spp. antibodies the microscopic agglutination test (MAT), using 24 serovars as antigens, was used. From the 1,000 animals analyzed, 82 (8.2%; 95% CI = 7.0%-10.5%) were sero-reactive being 26/500 (5.2%; 95% CI = 3.5%-7.5%) in goats and 56/500 (11.2%; 95% CI = 8.7%-14.2%) in sheep. The most frequent serovars were Hardjobovis (14.6%) and Autumnalis (13.4%). In goats, the most frequent serovar was the Hardjobovis, and in sheep the Ballum, with frequencies of 19.2% and 17.9%, respectively. There was a significant difference in the frequency of positive animals among slaughterhouses, both for goats (p = 0.035) and for sheep (p = 0.004), with the county of Alhandra presenting the highest frequency of seropositive animals for both species. It is concluded that sheep and goats from the semiarid region of the Northeastern Brazil may have become adapted to the serovars Hardjobovis e Autumnalis, as well as wild rodents may be involved in the transmission of the disease. It is possible that the climatic conditions influenced in the transmissibility of the leptospirosis, especially in the Mata Paraibana mesoregion, however it was not considered as being sufficient to justify the low frequency of seropositive animals. In this way, it is possible to suggest the hypothesis that the rusticity of the small ruminants in the studied region contributed to the low sero-reactivity verified.Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Semina: Ciências Agrárias adopts the CC-BY-NC license for its publications, the copyright being held by the author, in cases of republication we recommend that authors indicate first publication in this journal.
This license allows you to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, remix, transform and develop the material, as long as it is not for commercial purposes. And due credit must be given to the creator.
The opinions expressed by the authors of the articles are their sole responsibility.
The magazine reserves the right to make normative, orthographic and grammatical changes to the originals in order to maintain the cultured standard of the language and the credibility of the vehicle. However, it will respect the writing style of the authors. Changes, corrections or suggestions of a conceptual nature will be sent to the authors when necessary.
