Presence of Vaccine-Induced Antibodies Against Leptospira spp. Complicates the Diagnosis of Leptospirosis by the Microscopic Agglutination Test.

Background: Leptospirosis is a potentially fatal infectious disease. Therefore, annual revaccination of dogs is recommended, but this can lead to diagnostic interference due to vaccine-induced antibodies. This study determined the prevalence of Leptospira spp.-specific antibodies in 97 healthy adult dogs revaccinated with a 4-serovar vaccine (Nobivac^® L4).

Methods: Antibodies were measured with a microscopic agglutination test against 12 serovars before (week 0) and 2, 4, 12, 26, and 52 weeks after revaccination. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the presence of pre-revaccination antibodies. Mixed-effect logistic regression analyses and chi-squared tests were used to compare differences between antibodies against vaccine serovars and between vaccine and non-vaccine serovars at different time points.

Results: Overall, 63/97 dogs (64.9%) had antibodies against vaccine serovars before revaccination. During the study period, antibodies against ≥1 vaccine serovars were detected in all 97 dogs (100.0%). The highest likelihood of detectable antibodies was present in weeks 2 and 4, but 71/97 dogs (73.2%) had antibodies persisting 52 weeks after revaccination. Of 97 dogs, 75 dogs (78.4%) even had antibodies against ≥1 non-vaccine serovars. Among those, 19/75 (25.0%) had a fourfold titre increase.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that high levels of antibody titres against Leptospira spp. occur frequently and cross-reactivity against non-vaccine serovars is likely. The detection of vaccine-induced antibodies can therefore complicate the diagnosis of leptospirosis.