Abstract
Leptospirosis caused by Leptospira interrogans is considered as one of the most important zoonotic infections globally. It affects humans and wide range of animals. It damages various vital organs of the body and can often lead to fatal complications. The various symptoms of leptospirosis are fever, headache, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. It may lead to complications like jaundice, hemorrhage, myocarditis, meningitis and in some cases renal failure. Leptospirosis is mainly caused by rodents which are considered as reservoir hosts for leptospires. The other animals such as mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish are carriers of leptospirosis. Humans acquire leptospirosis accidently by contact with carrier animals or environment contaminated by leptospires. Leptospirosis has a wide geographical distribution including tropical, subtropical and temperate climatic regions. But it is more prevalent in the tropical areas where warm humid conditions and alkaline or neutral soil helps leptospires survive better. This review is an attempt to cover every aspect of leptospirosis in detail. The biology and culture characteristics of leptospires, classification, epidemiology, pathogenesis, host immune response, transmission cycle and different diagnostic methods have been explained in detail.
Highlights
Leptospirosis is the most important zoonosis worldwide (Sehgal, 2000)
It has become endemic in some of the South East Asian countries. It is caused by the bacteria belonging to the genus Leptospira (Waitkins, 1987). It occurs in varying environmental regions but is more prevalent in tropics where wet and humid conditions are highly favorable for its transmission
Due to low specificity of Enzyme linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA) as compared to Microscopic agglutination test (MAT) for a single sample, convalescent sample testing with MAT is recommended for confirming the results obtained (Cumberland et al, 1999)
Summary
Leptospirosis is the most important zoonosis worldwide (Sehgal, 2000). Due to its infectious nature it has emerged as a matter of major concern in India and many other countries. Leptospiral antibodies were found in two cases and one patient sample confirmed the presence of Leptospira serogroup Autumnalis (Muthusethupathi et al, 1995). LipL32 happens to be the most dominant outer membrane protein that triggers immune response against leptospirosis in humans (Hauk et al, 2008) Another outer membrane protein LipL21 which belongs to serovar Lai of Leptospira interrogans is reported to be having immunogenic potential (He et al, 2008). The septicemic phase is followed by the immune or delayed phase characterized by the production of antibodies and occurrence of leptospires in the urine (Levett, 2001) The disease at this stage is transferred from the blood vessels to various vital organs of the body.
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