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13 April 2018

From SLU’s knowledge bank: Leptospirosis in urban dairy farming. Is this a One Health issue?

Picture by Steve via flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

Global trends in urbanization are increasing the spread of neglected zoonotic infections such as leptospirosis, and reducing the number of human cases of leptospirosis is best accomplished by controlling the infection in the animal reservoir.

 

Leptospirosis is an infection caused by a bacteria called Leptospira. The symptoms vary from mild to severe. the infection is transmitted to humans by both wild and domestic animals. Read more about the disease in this Wikipedia page.

The aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of Leptospira borgpeterseniiserovar Hardjo and L. interrogans serovar Hardjo (L. Hardjo) exposure and to assess the associated risk factors for infection in small-scale dairy farming in the urban and peri-urban area of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The true individual seroprevalence among the dairy cows was 13%, and the level of seroprevalence was positively associated with older cows and with communal grazing practices.

Read more about this study here…