Ciência Rural (Jan 2015)

Isolation of Leptospira spp. from a man living in a rural area of the Municipality of Cruz Alta, RS, Brazil

  • Felipe Jorge da Silva,
  • Glaucenyra Cecília Pinheiro Silva,
  • Sylvia Grune Loffler,
  • Bibiana Brihuega,
  • Luis Ernesto Samartino,
  • Miguel Frederico Fernandez Alarcon,
  • Carlos Eduardo Pereira dos Santos,
  • Luis Antonio Mathias

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/0103-8478cr20140253
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 45, no. 1
pp. 47 – 51

Abstract

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The aim of this study was to describe the isolation of a pathogenic strain of Leptospira interrogans from the urine sample of a male human living in the rural area of the County of Cruz Alta, Rio Grande do Sul. An aliquot of each urine sample was sown in a Fletcher and Ellinghausen - McCullough - Johnson - Harris (EMJH) media. Samples in which there was growth of spirochetes were sent to the Leptospirosis Laboratory of the Institute of Pathobiology in the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, Buenos Aires, Argentina and were typified by the Multiple Locus of Variable Number Tandem Repeat technique (MLVA). Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni strain Fiocruz L1-130 was isolated, and this is a very important finding that serves as a warning to characterize risk situation of leptospirosis epidemic by a pathogenic strain. Health professionals need to be more committed to the primary health care in Brazil and routinely apply actions of preventive medicine in rural communities in order to get success in the control of leptospirosis and other important zoonoses

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