2 NEW LEPTOSPIRAL SEROVARS IN THE HEBDOMADIS SEROGROUP ISOLATED FROM ZIMBABWE CATTLE

Four strains belonging to the genus Leptospira serogroup Hebdomadis we re isolated from Zimbabwe cattle at slaughter. These isolates were sub jected to cross-agglutinin absorption tests and to restriction fragmen t length polymorphism and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analyses of their genomic DNAs. One of these strains represents a new serovar, fo r which the name mhou is proposed; strain SBF 40 is the reference stra in of this serovar. The other three strains belong to a second new ser ovar, for which the name marondera is proposed; the reference strain o f this serovar is strain SBF 5. The three strains of serovar marondera could be differentiated by their restriction fragment polymorphism an d pulsed-field gel electrophoretic patterns.