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. 2025 Sep 18;15(18):2725.
doi: 10.3390/ani15182725.

Seroprevalence of 16 Leptospira Serovars in Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) Hunted in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

Alice Stagnoli  1   2 , Robert Valerio House  1 , Juliane Hagemann  1 , Karen Dohmann  1 , Martin Pfeffer  2 , Catrin Albrecht  1
Affiliations

Seroprevalence of 16 Leptospira Serovars in Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) Hunted in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

Alice Stagnoli et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

In order to investigate the occurrence and epidemiology of leptospirosis in the wild boar (Sus scrofa) population of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, blood samples were collected from 2616 wild boar regularly hunted in 2023 and 2024. The diagnostic investigations were performed using the microscopic agglutination test (MAT) using a panel of fifteen pathogenic and one intermediate serovar of Leptospira spp. Overall, 12.4% (325/2616) (CI 95% 11.2-13.7) of wild boar were seropositive, with Australis being the most prevalent serovar (22.8%), followed by Pomona (13.2%) and Pyrogenes (12.3%). Specific antibodies against the intermediate Leptospira fainei serovar Hurstbridge were also detected in 8% of the positive samples. Based on these results, we conclude that wild boar are regularly infected with different zoonotic Leptospira serovars. As these hunted animals are tested for other notifiable diseases, additional screening for specific antibodies against Leptospira spp. could be easily implemented. This would be an important tool for detecting human and domestic animals' risk of exposure and may provide insight into which Leptospira serovars might be currently of clinical relevance.

Keywords: Leptospira; Leptospira fainei; Saxony-Anhalt; prevalence; wild boar.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Total number of wild boar from Saxony-Anhalt examined in this study, hunted during 2023 and 2024, and stratified by age class (upper panel) and sex (lower panel).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of positive (red dots) and negative (green dots) animals in the different counties of Saxony-Anhalt. Animals from the same location are represented by a single dot.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Apparent seroprevalence (%) of Leptospira in wild boar from the different administrative districts of Saxony-Anhalt: DE = Dessau-Roßlau, MD = Magdeburg city, HAL = Halle (Saale). Statistically significant differences in prevalence between districts are indicated by an asterisk (*).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Distribution (%) of Leptospira serovars identified in wild boar (n = 325) positively tested samples by MAT. In animals with antibody reactivity to multiple serovars, only the one with the highest antibody titer was considered the presumptive infecting serovar and is therefore represented in the chart.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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