[An old disease with a new face: canine leptospirosis does not lose its relevance]

The clinical features of the disease are presented based on retrospective analysis of the records of eleven dogs diagnosed with leptospirosis using clinical signs and results of the microagglutination test (MAT) between 1991 and 1996. Additionally, Leptospira titres were determined in 30 healthy dogs and 20 hospitalised dogs without clinical or laboratory evidence of leptospirosis. A positive titre for L. grippotyphosa, L. pomona, L. bratislava, L. australis, L. icterohaemorrhagiae and/or L. canicola was found in 16 normal dogs and only one hospitalised patient. Eight of these dogs had titres of > or = 1:800. Only one of them had been vaccinated shortly before sampling. These results suggest that many dogs from the surroundings of Bern, Switzerland have contact with various Leptospira interrogans serovars. In ten healthy dogs, the Leptospira titre was determined before and four weeks after vaccination with leptospiral antigen. Only two of the dogs showed a serologically measurable response to the antigen contained in the vaccine. In dogs MAT titers presumably do not reliably reflect the immune status against leptospiral infections.