leptospirosis

So I think that that's the thing to do is to vaccinate according to the WS-AVA guidelines as little as possible and be guided by this thing called a TETA test where you just do a blood test.

and see what the levels are now you can't do that meaningfully for leptospirosis so you're going to have to have a chat with your vet as to the lifestyle of the dog and the area that you are as to whether leptospirosis is very common in that area this is the vaccine which is given every single year Remind me what leptospirosis is? Leptospirosis is the rat urine disease.

Oh, that's

right.

What about leptospirosis? It's still the vaccine that causes more hypersensitivity adverse reactions other than rabies vaccine.

But again...

Dr. Schultz would say, well, Ron, what about Leptospira brattislava and Leptospira arumnalis? They're not in any of the vaccines.

He said, ah, we don't worry about them.

Well, they're prevalent around the Great Lakes and in some areas of the Northeast, also in the Northwest.

It's the most widely distributed zoonotic disease on earth and most people have never heard of it.

Can you give us a brief summary of leptospirosis and what it does and why are rats such good carriers? Sure, yeah.

Leptospirosis is, yeah, like you mentioned, one of the most widely distributed zoonotic diseases on Earth.

It is caused by bacterium, Leptospira enterogans, and there's a ton of different serotypes, and there's a ton of species in the environment.

And so only some of them are pathogenic.

Everybody should have those.

And then what are the lifestyle or the non-core vaccines that you might want to consider? Well, if you live in Alberta, Leptospirosis is a very rare disease.

So, in fact, in 38 years of practice, I've never seen a case.

Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never seen a case of it.

I read that in the Philippines, there's an uptick of leptospirosis, which is not trivial.

Can you tell us a little about that?

Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection.

It comes to us when we drink or are splashed in the face.

Our mucous membranes are exposed to water.

So unfortunately, a diagnosis was not made here.

We've talked about the idea that to me it really felt a lot like leptospirosis.

Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection.

It comes from the urine of rats.

The theory is that what happened here was we had a very dry winter and season, and so we had waters running relatively low and high temperatures.

And there's a few cases of acute kidney disease associated with infection, but not very many.

Leptospirosis would be the most common one worldwide.

And it's, for some reason, probably related to different serovars, it seems to be more common in Europe than it is in the U.S., but we have seen certainly acute kidney disease and acute kidney failure in horses within the U.S.

But its infectious causes are not very common.

Reporting from the Coastal Bend area, this has been Harvey Buring.

Leptospirosis can be a hidden disease in cattle.

Dr.

Bob Judd says cows can have lepto but never show the

symptoms.

Dr. Elsio Wonder from the University of Connecticut indicates in Bovine Veterinarian that cattle can carry leptospirosis in their kidneys and shed it to other animals without showing signs of disease.

Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that can cause reproductive problems, but there are many diseases that can do that.

So without other clinical signs, diagnosis can be difficult.

It responds dramatically to doxycycline or azithromycin, so early recognition is life-saving.

Leptospirosis after exposure to flood water or animal urine causes fever, jaundice, kidney injury, bleeding, and myocarditis with arrhythmias and conduction disease.

Lyme disease caused by Borrelia is rare in India, but important in North America and Europe.

It classically causes fluctuating AV block, which usually resolves with antibiotics such as ceftriaxone.

Certainly, because this is where we can make a dramatic difference.

Scrub typhus and other rickettsial infections respond to doxycycline, with azithromycin as the alternative in pregnancy and in children.

Leptospirosis is treated with penicillin, ceftriaxone, or doxycycline, along with supportive care for the kidneys and lungs.

Diphtheria requires urgent diphtheria antitoxin, antibiotics, isolation, and temporary pacing for conduction disease, and contacts must be traced and vaccinated.