‘Dairy farm fever’ found beyond dairy farms

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-02-17 11:01

New Zealand

PHOTO: Stijn Te Strake/Unsplash

It’s been referred to as ‘dairy farm fever’, but new research suggests that leptospirosis infections may be just as common among people working on beef, sheep, and deer farms as it is in dairy farms. New Zealand researchers investigated leptospirosis infections reported over two decades to see which agricultural occupations are most affected by disease. The research team found that farmers working with dry stock had just as many cases as dairy farmers. However, dry stock farms have much lower vaccination rates against the disease compared to their dairy farms. The authors say their research suggests the current status quo for vaccinating beef, sheep, and deer should be reassessed to provide more protection to this group of workers.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

People contract leptospirosis from infected animal urine and in New Zealand it is an occupational disease predominating in dairy workers. Patient occupation is critical to informing targeted intervention strategies to reduce contact with infected urine e.g. dairy cattle vaccination. However, we found occupation was only recorded accurately in two thirds of patients in surveillance data. We developed a bespoke mathematical model that found dry stock farmers contributed approximately equal numbers of cases of leptospirosis as dairy farmers. This new knowledge facilitates targeting of specific intervention strategies, notably increasing the use of currently available and efficacious animal vaccines amongst dry stock.

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Research The Royal Society, Web page URL after publication

Journal/
conference: Journal of the Royal Society Interface

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Massey University

Funder: S.E.F.S. gratefully acknowledges funding by MRC grant no.MR/P026400/1 and EPSRC grant no. EP/R018561/1. S.N. and J.B.gratefully acknowledge funding by New Zealand Health ResearchCouncil grant no. 18/239.

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