[Serological and epidemiological confirmation of leptospirosis epidemic in the mine "Stara Jama" in Zenica in 2005].

INTRODUCTION Leptospirosys belong to zoonoses that affects both humans and animals, and they are caused by the bacterias of leptospira sort. This is a relatively widely spread illness in the majority of countries around the world as well as in our country, whit often epidemic occurrence. The goal of the paper is to point out the importance of leptospira as a potential cause for individual or epidemic sickening of miners at the "Stara Jama" mine in Zenica. MATERIAL AND METHODOLOGY This research is conducted on a sample of 31 respondents--miners at the "Stara Jama" mine in Zenica during the epidemic of leptospirosys from 1st august until 6th September 2005. Selection of suspected patients is done based on a clinical signs of illness. All hospitalized had high fever, headache and hepatorenal syndrome. All complete and relevant tests are done for the 30 respondents, and from 26 of them one or two serum samples are taken, while from 4 patient's three samples are taken. Serological examination is conducted by the standard method of microscopic agglutination - liza-test with 14 serotypes of leptospira, RESULTS From the baseline of 30 respondents in 16 cases existed serological confirmation of leptospirosys etiology of illness. Among them also is determined a presence of specific antibodies in I, II and/or III serum sample for the certain serotypes of leptospira. Among other 14 hospitalized, from the sample of 30 respondents we did not find increase in titre for the specific antibodies within samples. Illness developed mainly among those in the age group between 24 and 56 years, and the highest frequency was between 20 and 50 years of age among male respondents. Antibody titre within the taken samples was in a solution 1:100 up to 1:16000, and the highest tested titres were for the L. Ballum, L. Tarassovi, L. Poi and L. Icterohaemorrhagiae. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Vectors for the leptospirosys in our environments are mainly rodents (mice's and rats, wild mice's, and voles) that lives in the vicinity of the settlements and which represents natural reservoir of illness. Epidemiological researches, especially in the environments such as mines, as one of the natural reservoirs, can be a significant indicator of frequency and development and this disease, which is one of the reasons why we choose to explore characterictics of the leptospirosys epidemic in the Mine "Stara Jama" in Zenica, and based on results and experience take adequate preventive actions in order to prevent some future occurrence of similar epidemic.