Feline leptospirosis serosurvey from a Quebec referral hospital.

Abstract

Epidemiologic studies have linked interactions with cats as a risk factor for human leptospirosis, but serosurveys of feline Leptospira spp. infection are scarce in the veterinary literature. The objective of this study was to conduct a serosurvey of Leptospira spp. infection in cats presenting to an eastern Canadian veterinary teaching hospital (VTH). All serum samples collected from cats presented to the VTH were tested by the microscopic agglutination test (MAT) for the Leptospira serovars Canicola, Grippotyphosa, Icterohaemorrhagiae, Bratislava, Pomona, and Autumnalis. Ten of 40 cats [25%; 95% confidence interval (CI): 12.7% to 41.2%] tested had positive antibody titers (≥ 1:100). All 10 cats with positive titers were positive for Bratislava and 2 were also positive for Autumnalis. This high incidence of seropositivity for Leptospira spp. may suggest that the disease could be of more clinical importance than previously recognized.