Occupational hazard of unnoticed leptospirosis in water ways maintenance staff.

A serological survey was performed with M.A.T. on the maintenance staff of water ways and public works and lock keepers to study the occupational hazards of leptospirosis. The target population was 58 professional people, 40 working on French rivers and 18 on a channel in the same western area of France. When we compared serological tests between these two groups, no significant difference appeared. But when we linked fish handling to close contact with water, we found a higher number of positive tests in the channel group than in the rivers group (P less than 0.01). We conclude that people working on the channel were susceptible to unnoticed Leptospira infection.