Identification of Leptospira andamana isolated from the spinal fluid of a fatal case of leptospirosis in São Paulo, 1963.

The IAL-S. P. strain was isolated from the spinal fluid of a patient male, aged 35, black, a sewer worker with fever, myalgia, jaundice, vomiting and meningitis symptoms with a 5-day incubation period after the lower half of the body had been submerged for 2 hours in sewers when unblocking a drain. Leptospires were isolated by direct inoculation of the spinal fluid taken on the 9th day of the illness into the Fletcher's media and into guinea pigs by the intraperitoneal route. The patient gave a positive agglutination test for L. andamana with cross-reaction with L. sejroe. The strain was identified as L. andamana by the cross-agglutination-lysis test and the cross-absorption test. The IAL-S. P. strain is undoubtedly not saprophytic but parasitic and pathogenic for man and animals, however its biological properties resist to the oligodynamic action of Cu and Hg and the 8-azoguanine action as in the case of the Patoc 1 strain. I could be recommended to reconsider whether the strain belongs to L. interrogans, L. biflexa or to another group because the grounds for L. andamana being saprophytic were denied by this report.