Leptospirosis in Man and Rodents on Taiwan

Summary A survey for leptospirosis in man and wild rodents in Taiwan, by serologic and cultural techniques, revealed that 3.22% of 8,362 school children were positive by the macroscopic slide-agglutination test of Galton et al. 13 The number of positive reactions dropped to 1.94% when the microscopical agglutination-lysis test was employed. A group of 65 patients with illnesses suggestive of leptospirosis were studied. Ten (15.4%) were serologically positive, and in two (3.08%) L. canicola was isolated by culture. Of 586 rodents studied, 38 (6.48%) were positive by the macroscopic slide-agglutination test, and 20 were positive by culture. R. norvegicus were more often positive although they represented only 32% of the trapped population, and 18 of 193 (9.32%) animals were positive. Only two of 282 (representing 48.5% of the trapped population) R. rattus had positive cultures (0.71%).