Abstract:
From human leptospirosis epidemic that occurred increasingly and continuously for 3-4 years in Burirum province. The epidemic may be use to hypothesize that source of leptospirosis infection was continuing to circulate in the outbreak area. The source of infection could have been carrier animals that shed leptospira spp. or environment that is contaminated with leptospires. Therefore, the objective of this study was to find the source of leptospirosis infection including carrier animal (i.e. cattles, buffaloes, pigs, dogs, and rats) and environment especially, suspicious water resource. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and culture techniques were employed to isolated leptospira spp. from urine samples. A total of 244 urine and suspicious water samples were negative to both PCR and culture techniques. Comparatively, a total of 340 serum samples were examined for antileptospiral antibodies using Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT). The MAT used 24 serogroup as a tested battery. From a total of 340 serum samples, 38 (11.1%) samples were positive at the cut off point greater than 1:20. Out of 38 serum samples, cattles accounted for 21 samples, buffaloes 12 samples, pigs 3 samples and dogs 2 samples. Most prevalence serovar were leptospira interogans serovar ballum (38.2%). Leptospira interogans serova bratislava accounted for 12.7%. Serovar hebdomadis, patoc, sejroe, autumnalis, and icterohemorrhagiae were also found positive in this study. Eventhough the results reviewed that leptospirosis is an endemic disease in Burirum province due to positive serum sample, leptospira spp. was not found in all collected sample. This can be hypothesized that animals and suspicious water resource were not the source of infection in human leptospirosis epidemic in this study. Therefore, the increasing cases of leptospirosis in human may have been a misdiagnosis and need further investigation.