Lai-like leptospira from the Andaman Islands.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Leptospirosis has been an important public health problem in the Andaman Islands since 1988. As information about the exact etiological agent is not available, the present study was undertaken to isolate and identify Leptospira from human patients.

METHODS

An isolate coded AF61 was recovered from the blood of a patient clinically suspected to have leptospirosis, with fever, headache and body aches as the main symptoms. The isolation was done using Ellinghausen-McCullough-Johnson-Harris (EMJH) medium following standard procedure. The isolate was identified using microscopic agglutination test (MAT) with 'groupsera', cross agglutination absorption test (CAAT) and monoclonal antibodies.

RESULTS

Agglutination tests with rabbit antisera revealed that the isolate belonged to the serogroup icterohaemorrhagiae. The CAAT results showed that it was closely related to the serovar lai. Analysis of AF61 with monoclonal antibodies confirms our observation with CAAT that it is closely related to the reference strain Lai serovar lai.

INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: Serovar lai, has been associated with pulmonary haemorrhage in China and Korea. However, the strain AF61 was not isolated from a patient with pulmonary symptoms. Further studies are needed to understand the possible relationship between serovars and clinical patterns and the distribution of serovar lai and lai-like strains in Asia.