The strain was isolated from a patient in Australia in 1954 and later studied and described as a new serovar named broomi, ref. strain Patane (Addamiano et al., 1960). It appears in the list of 1965 (WHO, 1965) as a recognized serovar.
The strain was submitted to factor analysis and it was suggested that it should be placed in the sugroup Canicola (Kmety, 1967).