By Gretchen Millich, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-994045.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI – Animal researchers at Michigan State University are urging dog owners to vaccinate their pets against a life-threatening bacteria. A number of dogs in the Detroit area are getting sick from the bacteria, and some are dying. Experts at MSU's Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health have identified the bacteria as a rare strain of leptospirosis.
Center director Carole Bolin says the bacteria can be spread by rats to domestic animals and can also be transmitted to humans. Bolin says it was quite common in Detroit during the 1960's, 70's and 80's.
CAROLE BOLIN: Since then, there was a big program to clean up dilapidated buildings where trash can collect and tend to be homes for rats. That happened about the same time that we really promoted vaccination of dogs. So, those two factors together made the prevalence of disease go down. If we think to the current day about what's happened in Detroit, there's a lot of abandoned housing. There's a lot of dilapidated properties. There's trash piling up, et cetera. So, there's a lot more rats in Detroit. The organism is probably present in those rats, and therefore, dogs could get infected.
GRETCHEN MILLICH: And these dogs are not vaccinated against this particular strain?
BOLIN: The dogs that we've identified so far have not been vaccinated. What is a little unusual is we would expect that the number of cases in stray dogs to be quite high. There's a big problem in Detroit right now with stray dogs, and those dogs would have much more opportunity to be exposed to rats and rat urine, which is the source of the bacteria. But the cases that were identified have largely been pets. They weren't vaccinated, but people owned them. So, this isn't the typical stray dog running on the street. These are owned pets.
MILLICH: What are the symptoms if a dog comes down with this?
BOLIN: Generally, with this particular type that we're seeing in Detroit, the dogs are happy and healthy one day, the next day they might be tired. They may or may not have a fever, but they'll be distinctly less active, and then they generally stop eating. They may begin vomiting, and usually at that point the owner is aware enough that this is not just your routine sort of illness, that this appears to be more serious, and it's often at that point that they are going to the veterinarian. This particular type of lepto causes severe liver disease, and, in fact, it causes liver failure in some dogs, and it causes kidney disease as well. What's surprising about this Detroit episode is from the time these dogs are thought to be ill and the time they die is a matter of a day or two. They're being presented to the veterinarian already gravely ill. With the best veterinary care in the world, if your liver has failed, the dog is not going to survive. So, it's how fast it occurs and how severe it is when it happens that is marking these cases in Detroit.
MILLICH: So, what do you do now to stop the spread of this disease, and do people in this area, mid-Michigan, need to worry about it?
BOLIN: We cannot eliminate the rats overnight, and with Detroit's economic circumstances, rat control is fairly low down on their priority list, understandably. The debilitated properties are not going to disappear. So, the one thing we absolutely can control is vaccination of our dogs. The rate of vaccination of dogs for leptospirosis has fallen off as the disease became more rare, so veterinarians did not recommend vaccination. So, we need to correct that. While we haven't identified this particular serotype in Lansing, for example, or in cities in mid-Michigan, there is no reason to believe that it couldn't occur. So, the owners and their veterinarians need to consider vaccination as a preventative.
Bolin says she's not aware of any human cases so far, but says the infection can be very serious in humans as well. It can range from a severe flu like illness all the way to liver and kidney failure. She suggests dog owners ask their vet for the vaccine for leptospirosis.