Strong Warning In The Detroit Area - Page 1

For all of you in, near or traveling through the Detroit, MI are please pay close attention to this warning.  I family I sold a puppy to lost their puppy to this strain of Lepto a month after the puppy went home.  For years no one here vaccinated for Lepto.

MSU researchers warn of bacterial outbreak in Metro Detroit dogs

http://bit.ly/s7Yzzp

http://www.detnews.com/article/20111028/METRO/110280413/1409/metro/MSU-researchers-warn-of-bacterial-outbreak-in-Metro-Detroit-dogs

MSU researchers warn of bacterial outbreak in Metro Detroit dogs

Mark Hicks/ The Detroit News

East Lansing- Michigan State University animal experts say more than 20

cases of a life-threatening bacterial infection have been reported in

Detroit-area dogs.

Michigan State University veterinary researchers are warning of an outbreak

of a life-threatening bacterial infection among dogs in Metro Detroit.

A specific strain of the disease known as leptospirosis has been diagnosed

in more than 20 cases. Nine dogs were either euthanized or died as a result.

"What is particularly unusual about this outbreak is that the dogs affected

are not stray animals, but people's pets," Carole Bolin, director of MSU's

Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health, said in a statement

Thursday.

"Unfortunately, we expect to see more cases, and this is a very dangerous

type of leptospirosis. Many veterinarians have never seen this type in dogs

because it was markedly reduced by vaccination."

Bolin and a team at MSU's College of Veterinary Medicine's diagnostic center

performed testing and identified the in

 infection strain as

icterohaemorrhagiae. Leptospirosis can be fatal in dogs. It is commonly

carried by rats but also can be transmitted between dogs or to humans, MSU

said.

Leptospirosis is linked to bacteria that resides in the kidney of a host -

often a wild or stray dog - and spread through urinating. Pets can become

infected by sniffing the urine or coming into contact with standing water

contaminated by rain and water runoff, according to MSU researchers.

The bacteria can travel through a dog's bloodstream and typically causes

fever, depression and vomiting. The condition can also attack the liver and

lead to organ failure, MSU said.

"This is a very serious, rapidly progressing type of leptospirosis in dogs," 

Yep.  This is exactly why I never stopped vaxing my dogs against lepto, and do so twice each year.  The minute percentage of dogs that adversely react to the vaccine is superceded by the severity of the disease in an affected dog; and any dog that has an immune system that's unable to handle the lepto vaccine is probably not going to fare very well in the face of actual disease, either...so either way, that dog loses. :(

Since I was very reticent to use non-core vaccines and yet there were possums that kept coming into my yard (5 in 5 days) and getting mauled by my dogs, I did some more research into Lepto.  Not only is it making a resurgence in the US, but the vaccine allegedly is both now more protective against all four of the common strains but is said to be less reactive to the dog because of the size of the protein used to make the vaccine.