Suspected cases of leptospirosis deserve a comprehensive investigation, writes John Maday. Infertility issues are typically multi-factorial and may be difficult to diagnose, but the causes usually involve non-disease issues such as bull fertility, cow nutrition, genetics, toxins or others. Some producers can mistakenly assume they have a lepto problem and focus on that while not addressing more common problems.
Source: Bovine Veterinarian, January 2018, page 16.
Where lepto is diagnosed or strongly suspected, the veterinarian and client can begin looking for sources of the pathogen, such as herd introductions or exposure to other animal carriers such as dogs or rodents. Simply changing to a hay source contaminated by a raccoon latrine can create enough exposure to lepto to tax vaccine protection.
INSIGHTS: Leptospirosis is one of the more important zoonotic diseases about which veterinarians and their teams need to stay current. Maday’s article is thorough relative to serovars. This is a must-read for all animal health pros.