Vol. 9, Special Issue 1 (2024)

Author(s): Shivaraj Murag, Manjunath Reddy, Sanjeev Kumar M, Shivashankar BP, Sripad K, Parijatha S Khoday, Manohar Raju MV, Bhavana and Raveendra Hegde

Abstract: Leptospirosis, a global disease of animals due to its widespread and potentially fatal zoonosis. Leptospirosis is endemic in most tropical regions causing outbreaks after heavy rainfall and floods affecting domestic, and wild animals as well as humans. Although some studies describe the occurrence of leptospirosis in captive animals. Infected domestic or wild animals act as reservoirs of leptospires, infections resulting from direct or indirect contact with an infected animal by shedding pathogenic leptospires in their urine. Nevertheless, the real role of wildlife animals as a source of infection to livestock and humans, as well as the most important reservoirs and leptospiral strains remains unclear. In places such as zoos and parks, most of the animals should be captivated by restrictions or it can lead to numerous infections and may cause a wild variety of zoonotic diseases. In the current study, differential diagnosis was carried out for the hyena which was found to be dead with hematemesis (blood vomit). The samples were subjected to septicaemic bacterial isolation in Blood agar, semisolid EMJH media and histopathological examination for microscopic changes. EMJH media showed the formation of Dinger’s ring after two weeks of incubation and subjected to Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), targeting 16S ribosomal G1, G2 (secY gene) and outer membrane LipL 32. P-+CR-amplified products were examined in 2% agarose gel. The amplicons from the kidney and heart showed base pairs of 285 for (G1&G2) and 756 for (LipL32) respectively indicating that the collected sample is positive for leptospira. On histopathological examination of the kidney showed interstitial nephritis. Thus, based on PCR, Gross Pathology and Histopathological studies it was concluded that the Hyena has died due to Leptospirosis.