Immunization against Leptospira pomona

Abstract

Extract

Leptospirosis is now recognized as a highly invasive, virulent, and often fatal disease of young animals, particularly calves, in which it follows a characteristic course with clinical symptoms of sudden fever accompanied by icterus and haemoglobinuria, with consequential anaemia, and a high mortality. Recovered animals are highly resistant to reinfection, and their blood usually shows a high and persistent agglutination-lysis titre against the appropriate leptospira strain. Another important feature from the epidemiological point of view is the fact that most clinically recovered animals pass through a more or less prolonged carrier phase during which the kidney tubules become colonized by the organisms which are excreted in the urine in enormous numbers and in viable form.