Prospects of developing leptospiral vaccines for animals.

Leptospirosis is a common disease of livestock, pet many countries for cattle, dogs and swine but vaccination may animals and wildlife throughout the world. Sporadic cases and prove only partially effective due to generation of serovar outbreaks of the disease have been reported from USA, U.K, specific immunity, prevalence of several Leptospira serovars Australia, New Zealand, USSR and countries of Europe and and the tendency of the vaccinated animals to become carriers Asia. The disease is common in cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, of the organisms. A successful vaccination programme requires dogs and equines and causes fever, jaundice, nephritis, that epidemiologi al studies should be continued to assess reproductive disorders and death. In dairy animals, loss of milk the extent of the problem and the knowledge of involvement and mastitis may be observed. of different Leptospira serovars in causing the disease in a given population. If in a particular region, leptospirosis is In India, Taylor and Goyale for the first time in 1931 considered economically a priority disease, which has to be reported the isolation of Leptospira organisms from patients tackled by vaccination, the target animal population must be showing jaundice in Andaman Islands. Soon after this report, specified, as it may not be possible to vaccinate all the animals. reported isolation of Leptospira. interrogans serovar In this review various attempts made in the past and the Icterohaemorrhagiae from dogs in Madras city. Since then efforts being made presently on the development of Leptospira several reports have emerged confirming the prevalence of vaccines are given. leptospirosis in various animal species and man in India. Isolation of Leptospira serovars from diseased and carrier Inactivated whole culture vaccine animals including cases of leptospirosis are commonly reported from coastal regions of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Over the past 50 years, a number of Leptospira vaccines Maharashtra and Andaman Islands. Adinarayanan et al have been developed and evaluated in laboratory animals, reported natural outbreaks of bovine leptospirosis in U.P. due cattle, swine, dogs, sheep and horses. Most of these have to serogroup Hebdomadis. Antibodies against serovars been bacterins containing inactivated organisms by various Pomona, Autumnalis, Grippotyphosa, Javanica and Poi have chemical means and heat. Broom 10 been reported from Tamil Nadu. protection of hamsters against Canicola given phenolinactivated cultures in high doses. Brunner and Meyer Srivastava et al detected agglutinins in 7% of 1839 cattle reported the successful immunization of hamsters and dogs Ayyar