author(s)
M Veeraselvam, R Sridhar, MG Jayathanagaraj, V Ramakrishnan, P Perumal and NV Rajesh

abstract
Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease of domestic and wild mammals that poses a great threat to the public and personnel involved in their management. Knowledge of prevalence of Leptospira in wild and captive carnivores like sloth bears supports the implementation of effective control programmes and thus reduces the transmission risks. The present study aims to screen serologically for the evidence of antibodies against leptospirosis using Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT) and Latex Agglutination Test (LAT) using LipL32 antigen. Fifteen serum samples were collected from captive sloth bears maintained in Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad, irrespective of sex and age were subject to testing. Antileptospiral agglutinins were detected in 3 bears by MAT and 4 bears LAT out of the 15 samples. Results from this study revealed that the predominant serogroups were Leptospira interogans serovar Pomona and serovar Pyrogenes. A titre value of 1:200 for serovar Pomona and a titre value of 1:100 for serovar Pyrogenes were recorded in this study. Further studies using larger number of samples from wild fauna and are required, in order to obtain the detailed information on the incidence of leptospirosis.