Material and Methods: In December 2014, Kelantan was hit by an extensive flood. A total of 1,728 serum samples were collected from livestock from the state, comprised of 1,024 from cattle, 366 from goats and 338 from sheep, and they were tested using the microscopic agglutination test (MAT).

Results: Altogether, 203 (11.75%; 203/1728; 95% CI: 10.20%-13.30%) of the tested sera were found to be positive serologically. Cattle had the highest prevalence of 14.16% (145/1024), while goats and sheep had 11.20% (41/366) and 5.03% (17/338) respectively. The most frequent serovars detected were Hardjo-bovis (3.70%; 64/1728), Hebdomadis (2.08%; 36/1728) and Pomona (1.04%; 18/1728). There was a statistically significant association (P < 0.05) between livestock that were exposed to the flood and seropositivity.

Material and Methods: Blood samples (10 mL) from 25 buffaloes of each of the Nili, Ravi, Nili-Ravi, Kundhi, and Azi-Kheli breeds were collected aseptically from the jugular vein into 50 ml Falcon tubes containing 200 µl of 0.5 M EDTA. The phenol-chloroform method was used to extract DNA and the regions were amplified for microsatellite analysis. The eight microsatellite markers ETH10, INRA005, ILSTS029, ILSTS033, ILSTS049, ILSTS052, ETH225, and CSSM66 were analysed.

Results: The effective number of alleles across all loci was as usual lower than the observed values with a mean value of 2.52 alleles per locus. The overall allele frequency varied from 0.0041 for alleles B, I, and J over respective loci ILSTS052, INRA005, and ILSTS029 to 0.80 for allele H over locus ILSTS029. The average observed and expected heterozygosity values across all polymorphic loci in all studied buffalo breeds were 0.43 and 0.53, respectively. The overall value for polymorphic information content of considered microsatellite markers was 0.53, suggesting their appropriateness for genetic diversity analysis in buffalo. The mean Fis value was 0.13 and all loci except ILSTS049 were found significantly deviated from HWE, most likely due to non-random breeding. The five buffalo populations were genetically less diverse as indicated by a small mean Fst value (0.07). The average gene flow (Nm) indicative for population migration was calculated as 3.31. Nei's original measures of genetic distance (Ds) revealed ancient divergence of the Nili and Azi-Kheli breeds (Ds = 0.1747) and recent divergence of the Nili and Ravi breeds (Ds = 0.0374).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 344 cloacal swabs or faeces were collected and subjected to detection using the RT-PCR assay. Meanwhile, KAP questionnaires were distributed by using the Google forms platform.

RESULTS: Molecular prevalence studies revealed that 4.5% (9/201) of the pet birds were ABV-positive, whereas 0% (0/143) in waterfowl. Nine positive pet birds were identified to be PaBV-2, which is closest to ABV isolates EU781967 (USA). Among the risk factors analysed, category, age and, location, were found to show an association with the ABV positivity. The KAP survey result showed: the respondents have low knowledge (32.9%), however, they showed positive attitude (60.8%) and good practice (94.9%). The association between knowledge, attitude and practice showed that there was a significant association between knowledge-attitude and also attitude-practice (P<0.05).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: The qPCR assays were validated using existing leptospiral isolates. Whole blood and urine samples were analysed using a conventional PCR, LipL32(1) and LipL32(2) qPCRs and a microscopic agglutination test. The sensitivity and specificity of the qPCRs were determined.

RESULTS: The LipL32(1) qPCR assay had more diagnostic value than the LipL32(2) qPCR assay. Further evaluation of this assay revealed that it could detect as low as five DNA copies per reaction with high specificity for the tested leptospiral strains. No cross-amplification was observed with other organisms. Analysing the clinical samples, the LipL32(1) qPCR assay had 100.0% sensitivity and >75.0% specificity.