N. JEYAKUMAR, A.J.A. RANJITHSINGH, S.K. SHANKAR AND G. HEPZIBAH BEULA
Abstract
Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease prevenalent in South India. Clinical manifestations of this disease ranges from fever, myalgia, conjunctival suffusion to serve life threatening illness due to involvment of multiple organ system e.g. hepatic, renal, central nervous system etc. The study area, Salem and Namakkal districts are in the North -West area of Tamilnadu. More that 60% of people studied, 150 persons suffered with fever, myalgia, diarrhea, jaundice, conjunctivitis and renal complications and 10 were healthy and normal persons. Of the 150 persons with health problems, 90 were males and 60 were females. Among them integrated farm workers were 37.55, 28.13% were livestock workers, 28.13% were sewage workers and 6.245 were involved in other activities. Among the 60 integrated farm workers screened, 35% (58.3%) where positive for leptospirosis and 16% (35.5%) doing livestock work where positive out of the 45 cases studied. From this study it is clear that the five types of serovars are highly prevalent in the study area. Of the different serovars, Louisiana was the most commonly (11.4%) recorded organism. It was followed by Autumnalis (8.5%), Australis (5.7%) and others.