Abstract

VIVEROS VELAZQUEZ, Rebeca Elizabeth et al. Epidemiological evaluation of Leptospirosis in companion animals in Paraguay, year 2021 - 2022. Rep. cient. FACEN [online]. 2024, vol.15, n.2, pp.41-54. ISSN 2222-145X.  https://doi.org/10.18004/rcfacen.2024.15.2.041.

The present work was carried out with the objective of evaluating the epidemiology of Leptospirosis in companion animals in Paraguay, year 2021 - 2022. For this purpose, samples were taken from a database, granted by a private veterinary laboratory, of laboratory results of positive, negative and serovars of leptospirosis in animals of the canine and feline species of different origins corresponding to the years 2021 and 2022. Of a total of 6506 samples of canines and felines, a prevalence of 80% was obtained in the year 2021 and 69.4% by the year 2022. The presence of anti-leptospiral antibodies in canines being more frequent, between the year 2021 (95.8%) and 2022 (89.5%), and from the feline species 4.1 were obtained. % for the year 2021 and 10.4% in the year 2022. Likewise, in the year 2021 a high prevalence of seropositivity to Leptospirosis was registered in the Central department (90.9%) and in the year 2022 corresponding again to the Central department (92%). Likewise, a survey was carried out on 81 veterinary professionals who had cases of Leptospirosis who attended a veterinary consultation, on the diagnostic methods most used, 35% used the Elisa test, 30.8% stated that they used more than one test as diagnostic method, 24.6% used the microscopic agglutination test (MAT), 4.9% used PCR, and the remaining 3.7% used the dark background microscopy test. Regarding the most frequent symp

toms, they were the following: fever (69.1%), paleness of the mucous membranes (53%), dehydration (43.2%), anorexia (41.9%), reddish-brownish urine (40 7%), vomiting (37%), jaundice (33.3%), diarrhea (32%), neuro-

logical symptoms (25.9%), uraemic halitosis (24.6%), sublumbar/renal pain (23, 4%), respiratory symptoms

(16%), episcleral vascular congestion (12.3%), drowsiness (8.6%), and epistaxis (6.1%). Leptospirosis, being a zoonotic disease, re-emerging and neglected, is currently gaining relevance due to the results obtained in this research showing that it is a disease with high seropositivity in our country.

Keywords : Leptospira spp.; epidemiology; companion animals; Paraguay..

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