Equine leptospirosis (Proceedings)   Equine leptospirosis
(Proceedings)  Aug 01, 2008  Leptospirosis is caused by a highly
invasive, spiral bacteria in the genus Leptospira. The
infectious agent is capable of infecting man and animals. There
is less known about leptospirosis in horses than any common
domestic animal except the cat. The DNA-based genus
classification of Leptospira includes 8 pathogenic species and 5
non-pathogenic species. Serovars, which are based upon the older
phenotype classification, are sometimes classified as host
adapted infection or incidental host infection. Host adapted
strains seldom cause clinical disease in their maintenance host,
infection and shedding are prolonged, and the serologic response
following infection is relatively low. Conversely, incidental
host serovars are more likely to cause clinical disease in a
non-maintenance host, a marked serologic response occurs
following infection, and there is only a brief period of
shedding. In North American horses, Leptospira pomona