Investigation of reservoir animals of Leptospira in the northern part of Miyazaki Prefecture.

We surveyed reservoir animals of leptospires in the northern part of Miyazaki Prefecture, where a cluster of human leptospirosis had occurred during the summer of 2006. Leptospira was isolated from 6 of 57 large Japanese field mice (Apodemus speciosus). The serogroups of the isolates were Autumnalis (5 strains) and Hebdomadis (1 strain) and the partial nucleotide sequences of their flaB genes suggested that the isolates belonged to L.