Essay On Leptospirosis

Review of Literature
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Zoonoses are the infections that are transmitted to humans from a vertebrate host. Earlier, they include all the diseases that were shared by humans and animals as introduced by Rudolf Virchow in 1880. Later on, the word zoonoses represented only those diseases which were proven or had direct circumstantial evidence of being transmitted by an animal. Zoonoses are known to occur throughout the world and also to transcend across the boundaries. This affects the global economy and health. Changes such as urbanization, industrialization and deforestation have also known to have their effect in the change of the zoonotic diseases. Some diseases which were earlier to be considered to be limited to man have found their sources in animals.

There are many different

It is estimated that 12.7% of the patients with acute febrile illness who were admitted to the hospitals were positive for leptospirosis. (Sehgal et al, 2003). The outbreaks of leptospirosis were reported from Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and many sporadic cases have also been reported from areas such as Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Assam (WHO, 2006). Leptospirosis has also been known to be endemic sin our country since the early 20 th century , in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, wherein the serovars Valbuzzi, Ratnapura and Grippo-typhosa have been documented to be the cause of severe epidemics. (Vijayachari et al, 2004). Highest rates of leptospirosis is said to occur during the months of October to November, with a seroprevalence of 55% in the general population (Vinetz et al, 1996). It has been found that the predominance of leptospirosis in coastal regions mostly correlated due the presence of semi-domestic brown rats. In the nland urban regions there are other serovars with other host animals or rodents which were presumed to cause the mild leptospirosis which is usually unrecognized or