Profile of Leptospirosis Patients Admitted in Tertiary Care Centre of South Gujarat

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease with worldwide distribution caused by pathogenic leptospira. Leptospirosis is more prevalent in South Gujarat due to heavy rain, salinity of soil and water logging.

The current study was conducted to know the profile of patients who were admitted as suspected Leptospirosis cases in New Civil Hospital, Surat (NCHS).

A prospective study, carried out between July to October 2013. The profile of patients who were suspected for Leptospirosis and admitted in NCHS was obtained using standard pre designed structured questionnaire.

Data entry and analysis was done in excel and SPSS v 16

Among the 159 suspected cases of Leptospirosis, 111 (69.8%) were males and age of patients ranged from 15 to 80 years with mean age of 37.45 years. Fever, myalgia, and headache were predominant complaints and all had history of contact with animals or contaminated environment. Liver functions and renal functions were deranged in 52.2% and 45.3% cases respectively. Calf tenderness having higher negative predictive value of 84% and fever having the higher positive predictive value of 92.9% so we can say suspected cases having both symptoms together has higher chance of Leptospirosis.

Majority of the patients belong to the rural area and almost all had history of contact with animals. Fever, myalgia (calf tenderness), jaundice and conjunctival suffusion were characteristic findings. Jaundice and renal failure are associated with severity of the disease and are considered bad prognostic signs with high mortality rate (54%). More than 50% of patients, who died due to Leptospirosis, were alcoholic.