Leptospirosis is an important zoonotic disease in the world and a real public health concern for many years in New Caledonia. A cross-sectional survey was carried out on domestic and wild animals from New Caledonia in April 2009. Blood samples were collected from 30 cattle, 29 deers, (Cervus timorensis russa), 25 horses, 51 dogs, and 8 cats and were tested for 23 serovars of pathogenic Leptospira species by the microscopic agglutination test. From the total number of 143 samples, 84 (58.7%) were found to be positive towards one or several serovars of pathogenic leptospires. According to the species, the positive sera were obtained from 43% of 30 cattle, 72% of 29 Rusa deer, 80% of 25 horses, and 43% of 51 dogs, and fromall of the 8 cats tested. This study shows the broad dispersion and the high prevalence of the different serogroups of pathogenic Leptospira species tested, particularly among deer and horses. The disease is endemic in domestic animals and concerns all the species. 1. Introduction Leptospirosis is presumed to be the most widespread zoonosis in the world [1, 2]. The disease is caused by spirochetes of the genus Leptospira and more than 260 serovars of pathogenic Leptospira species are now recognized [3]. Pathogenic strains are placed into 24 serogroups based on agglutinating antigens and into multiple genomospecies based on DNA studies [4, 5]. Leptospirosis has been identified as an emerging or a re-emerging infectious disease, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions, where environmental conditions favour the survival and transmission of leptospires [6, 7]. The global burden of disease is unknown because of the lake of data, but incidence estimates range from 0.1 to 1/100,000/year in temperate areas, to over 100/100,000/year during epidemics in the tropics. Estimated 300,000–500,000 severe cases occur each year, with case-fatality reports of up to 50% [8–12]. The disease constitutes a serious public health issue, particularly in areas which are known to be at high-risk for leptospirosis, as Pacific Islands [7]. Leptospirosis is known to be endemic in Pacific Islands and epidemics often occur during seasonal heavy rainfall and flooding and are associated with extreme weather events, notably under the influence of the El Nino Southern Oscillation [18], as exemplified by the outbreak in the Philippines in 2009, which occurred a month after Ondoy typhoon flooded Manila, causing 3382 cases and 249 deaths [13], or as supposed in 2008 [14, 15] for the epidemic human leptospirosis in New Caledonia, which caused 135 cases and 5 deaths. New
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