Preventive Veterinary Medicine 65 (2004) 119
Letter to the Editor Response from N.B. Vanasco, M.D. Sequeira, G. Sequeira and H.D. Tarabla to H. Leblebicioglu and M. Sunbul We are in complete agreement that “PCR may be a valuable method for the detection of leptospires in animals for comparative studies” (Merien et al., 1995; Sunbul et al., 2001). However, in our paper, culture, inmunohistochemical and silver-stained (Warthin-Starry) results were discussed only in relationship to the high seroprevalence found in O. flavescens. Reasons for negative culture results in this species and A. azarae (that, by the way, are not “rats”) were just hypotheses, as it was clearly stated in our paper. Moreover, our aim was not only to find relationships between infection and environmental and rodent characteristics, but also to explore risk factors for past and current infections measured by means of antibody response.
References Merien, F., Baranton, G., Perolat, P., 1995. Comparison of polymerase chain reaction with microaglutination test and culture for diagnosis of leptospirosis. J. Infect. Dis. 172 (1), 281–285. Sunbul, M., Esen, S., Leblebicioglu, H., Hokelet, M., Pekay, A., Eroglu, C., 2001. Rattus norvegicus acting as reservoir of Leptospira interrogans in the Middle Back Sea region of Turkey as evidenced by PCR and presence of serum antibodies to Leptospira strain. Scand. J. Infect. Dis. 33 (12), 896–898.
N.B. Vanasco∗ , M.D. Sequeira G. Sequeira, H.D. Tarabla Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades ANLIS, Respiratorias (INER) “E. Coni” Blas Parera 8260, Santa Fe, Argentina ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +54-343-4697349 fax: +54-342-4892830 E-mail address:
[email protected] (N.B. Vanasco)
0167-5877/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2004.06.004
