Since 1984 when we discovered that n unknown symptom complex recognized as "an epidemic pulmonary hemorrhagic fever" was a leptospiral infection, 174 strains, 92 from human and 82 from others, have been isolated in various regions in Korea, Among
these,
49 isolated and identified in our laboratory in collaboration with Laboratory of Leptospires, Pasteur Institute were characterized. The 49 strains were identified to be Leptospira interrogans(29) and Leptospira biflexa(18). And the rest of 2
strains did
not react with any of the known anti-leptospires antisera. Majority of L. interrogans strains(22/29) belonged to serogroup icterohemorrhagia, of which servars were Copenhageni(13) and lai(9). The other 6 strains were found to be L. interrogans
serogroup
canicola. All of these were ffell into sngle serovar of Canicola. When their source of origin was compared, all of Canicola strains(3/3) were isolated from febrile patients whereas 55.5%(10/18) of L. interrognas icterohemorrhagia strains were
isolated
from febrile patients. Although it is generally accepted that L. biflexa is non-pathogenic strains, isolation of L. biflexa from febrile patients were not infrequent(5/18). In this regard, a segver clinical case due to L. biflexa infection has
been
reported. Thus, the possibile existence of a disease due to L. biflexa infection along with that of laboratory contaminations should not be ignored.
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