Leishmaniasis: Leishmaniasis in dogs simply explained - Symptoms, treatment and much more!

By Roland Berger

A summer vacation with the beloved family dog can be a wonderful time and lead to even more wonderful memories. However, it is not uncommon for that very vacation to be the cause of a serious illness, sometimes years later: Leishmaniasis.

Once infected with the pathogen, the Leishmania parasites, there is no cure and also no mature medicine. In more than ninety percent of infected animals, the disease ends in death after about two to three years at the time of diagnosis. Dogs living in the areas of the risk zones and thus in the countries of origin, on the other hand, can unfortunately meet their end as a result of the disease after just twelve months.

Many vacationers are not aware of the danger to which they expose their beloved animals. That is why, years later, when a veterinarian checks the family dog, the diagnosis comes as such an incredible surprise. However, the disease is preventative. This book is designed to teach you not only how to protect your faithful four-legged friend during the summer months, but also what options dog owners have if the dog does become infected.

The contents of the book are:
- Basics of Leishmaniasis
- Contagious and dangerous?
- Leishmaniasis in dogs
- Diagnosis of leishmaniasis
- Treatments
- Follow-up

So this book is for all those who want to protect their beloved pet, but also for those who are already struggling with this insidious disease in their own family life.

The book is not meant to give you false hope about this deadly disease. It can still be very helpful to learn a little about this disease in advance, so that you can perhaps save your dog's life. Hopefully, this book will give you a first introduction to the subject.

• Language: English
• Publisher: XinXii
• Release date: Apr 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9783986468699

Book preview

List of Figures

Figure 1: Leishmania cell

Figure 2: Known tropical infectious diseases

Figure 3: Research is unfortunately still in its infancy.

Introduction

The well-planned and long-awaited vacation in the summer can hardly be expected by so many people. The entire year was saved on this one to two weeks of vacation and if then finally the summer has arrived, this vacation fever is only greater. A vacation goal was selected already months before the reservation and also, which undertakings are to be made in this time, are planned through in many cases on the minute. The fact that the vacation can go also more than only wrong, think of it the fewest, particularly within the range of the illness-transferring insects; it was packed nevertheless finally mosquito spray. However, if you accidentally forget this or don't even pay attention to what diseases there are in the selected vacation destination, you can often look forward to a rude awakening.

Even a single inconspicuous bite is enough to be diagnosed by a dermatologist: Leishmaniasis. This will be particularly unpleasant, because unsightly flaps form on the skin and perhaps one or the other medicine must be taken. But it is not life-threatening for a human being. Especially not for those who have normal to good health insurance. In retrospect, of course, you wish you had paid a little more attention, used more bug spray or chosen a different vacation destination. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for people who have already been infected with leishmaniasis to travel again to particularly warm regions where the sand flies that transmit the pathogen prefer to stay. This is because some of these tropical infections simply heal without therapy and treatment. Among other things, this means that many people do not even realize that they have been infected, because there is just not always a pronounced spotting or exactly these spots are simply ignored. So, with a bit of luck, a doctor doesn't even have to help. Of course, it can also come to somewhat more difficult courses of the disease, where just not only the skin is affected, but also the mucous membranes or internal organs. In most cases, however, only a scar remains, which indeed looks a little unsightly. But once you have overcome a certain species of leishmaniasis, you are completely immune to this particular pathogen. During the next vacation in one of the many summer vacation areas, which harbor exactly these pathogens, it is nevertheless better to be careful, because there are more than ten pathogens to which a person can react. Accordingly, being immune to only one is not enough and a new infection can therefore occur again and again in nine out of ten cases.

However, a person still has it quite easy with the courses of this disease. In many cases, neither therapy nor medication is needed. The pain is also kept within limits. Often, this disease only brings a slight uncomfortable feeling, which can often be well ignored in everyday life. Leishmaniasis, however, does not only occur in humans. Instead, there are so many more pathogens in the animal world than there are in humans, which also often do not heal so easily. Nevertheless, leishmaniasis in particular is present among a wide variety of animal species. Some animals even offer natural protection to these sandflies that transmit the pathogen. But animals that are not native there and especially pets, have a much harder time with an infection.

Once a dog has contracted leishmaniasis, it remains infected for the rest of its life. The dog's immune system does not manage to defend itself against the pathogens and accordingly does not form any defense bodies. Human bodies, on the other hand, manage to learn and evolve with a virus on the basis of an infection. This is not the case with dogs. They are completely defenceless against an infection. Among other things, this also means that the immune system never adapts to the infection. Unlike humans, this does not make a dog immune. It suffers from this disease for its entire life, especially if it is left alone as a stray, for example. With the right veterinarian, the symptoms can be treated so that the pain and even the outward signs fade away. But in the end, the dog remains sick forever, which is why this disease eventually leads to the death of the affected animal. By all means a vaccination for dogs was already worked on, which is to offer a protracted protection to the best companion of humans before the illness, however this is not only complex, but thus also more than only expensive, whereby said vaccination was not tested yet to one hundred per cent. Therefore, the effect of this means is still controversial.

Accordingly, there are significantly fewer ways for dogs to protect themselves from this disease than there are for humans. And once you get sick, there is no cure. At the same time, it is not exactly rare that no one can be found to look after the dog every single day during the long-awaited summer vacation. A temporary shelter is quite expensive and leaving the family dog alone for several weeks is of course not an option either. Accordingly, the decision is not exactly difficult to simply take the dog to the vacation destination. If the accommodation has no problem with it, there are in the fewest cases thereby any difficulties. Without vaccination and without any protection the dog is however in a foreign country full of diseases and often the owners do not know at all, which danger they expose their family dog actually. Should it happen that the dog is bitten by a sandfly, which not only has a very small body and is therefore difficult to see with the naked eye, but is also unfortunately in its fertilization phase, then it can take years before the owners realize that something is wrong with their long-time friend. Infection in dogs can sometimes take several years to become apparent, as many of the symptoms do not show up immediately, but only when infection is inevitable and incurable. In an early stage of the disease, it can already no longer be cured, but there are some drugs that slow down the growth of leishmania, so that symptoms appear much slower and accordingly less painful, but these preparations bring some unpleasant side effects. In the end, a very special diet has to be taken care of, which the dog has to eat as long as he can and all this only because the owners did not inform themselves beforehand exactly about