Erosa-Barbachano.A

Language: Spanish
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ABSTRACT

This name has been assigned to the infectious state caused by Leptospira, a bacteria belonging to the treponema family. 16 species have been identified which present 180 serotypes in 18 serogroups. Its principal carriers are; rats, dogs, cows, possums, mice and pigs. In 1947, Wood recorded that this agent had been found in the faeces of more than 10% of the rural and urban grey rats tested. During the first World War there were epidemic outbreaks in the armies which fought in Europe. The theory that it was carried by rats became more popular after the 1918 epidemic in Guayaquil and the 1935 epidemics in the ports of Rotterdam, London and Liverpool. Wood (1947) says that the first registered case was reported in the USA in 1922 and by 1946 the disease had been reported in 46 countries. In Mexico, the Secretaria de Salud and Asistencia reported (1975) that positive samples had been detected in the Gulf states (Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco and Yucatan), as well as in the ports of Mazatlan, Tampico and Veracruz. From 2,500 BC onwards mentions of pathological signs which could be cases of leptospirosis can be found in mesopotamic cuneiform writing. The same can be said for Egypt, where symtoms and pathologic charts similar to leptospirosis can be found in medical papyrus. In 1886, Weil presented the first detailed description of the disease, but the causal agent was first discovered by Inada and Ido in 1914, who reported it as a "spiroqueta". In 1918, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Hideyo Noguchi discovered a spiroqueta in blood of patients who, according to local doctors, were suffering from yellow fever, and he called it Leptospira icteroides. In December 1919, he moved to Merida and discovered the first case of leptospirosis in the Peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico. In 1958, the first epidemic outbreak ocurred in Kinchil and Tetiz, Yucatan, Mexico. Recently Jorge Zavala et al. (1984), found 14.1% seropositivity in humans, 23.3% in pigs and 11.3% in cows for leptospira, in this same region.