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Proceedings of the First Symposium on Marsupials in New Zealand

Discussion

Discussion

These results demonstrate that leptospiral infections of pastoral possums in New Zealand are very common with over 80% of mature adults showing serological and/or cultural evidence of infection at the time of collection. The recovery and definitive identification of L. balcanica from possums establishes this animal as a primary host reservoir for this organism. The origin of this infection in possums in New Zealand is unknown as this organism page 161 has only previously been isolated from domestic stock and man in East Europe. Other wildlife species including rats, mice, hedgehogs, Mustelidae, pukekos and ducks have been investigated in New Zealand for Hebdomadis infections (unpublished data) but no cultural or serological evidence has so far been found.

Isolations were made in all cases from sexually mature adults, and serological reactions were also restricted to this group. This pattern has been reported in other species of wildlife in leptospiral surveys overseas (Ferris et al. 1961; Wolf and Bohlander 1965; Shotts et al. 1975) and may be a feature of endemic host-adapted leptospiral infection in wild animal populations.

Two earlier reports of leptospiral infections in possums (Brockie 1975; de Lisle et al. 1975) provisionally diagnosed the organism involved as being hardjo. Without the use of cross-absorption tests, it is not possible to distinguish between balcanica and hardjo. In light of the results of the present survey it is more likely that the organisms isolated were in fact balcanica. The fact that possums infected with balcanica give a higher serological titre against hardjo antigen compared with homologous antigen is being further investigated.