General information about Leishmaniasis

Leishmaniasis is transmitted by the bite of infected female phlebotomine sandflies.

This disease mainly affects dogs, although occasionally cases have been reported in human and other animals, such as cats. It’s caused by a parasite and transmitted by insects similar to mosquitoes (sand flies), as known as “The mosquito’s disease”. When a sand fly bites an infected dog, it acquires the illness and after a short latency period, it transmits the disease to all the animals that it bites, thus expanding the disease.

It’s important to know:

Leishmaniasis is a serious pathology, with multiple symptoms and often lethal. Between the symptoms can be found: depression, lethargy, anorexia, skin lesions (ulcers, crusts, inflammation and secondary infections), nasal bleeding, kidney and hepatic problems, anemia, etc. Not all breeds are equally susceptible.

Both, parasite and mosquito are present in Spain, especially in the south, because of the weather.
In the Autonomous Community of Andalucía, all Leishmania’s cases must be declared to the competent authorities, and those animals who are not treated are supposed to be put down.

Vaccination Information

Why we should vaccinate them?

The appearance of symptoms depends on the kind of immunitary response that the animal develops:

One of the immunitary responses is to blame for the appearance of clinical signs, because it generates too many antibodies that cause damage in different organs. This is the one that animals develop in normal situation.
The other one favours the parasite’s elimination and disease resistance. Furthermore, it produces memory cells which keep the animal protected from future infections. This kind of response is stimulated by the vaccine.

As refers adverse reactions, this vaccine is safe, since for its elaboration they have used a culture media free of protein (the main cause of allergic reactions). Likewise, the residual virulence has been reduced (minor side effects, such as: fever, depression, anorexia, etc.) as they don’t use the full parasite, just microscopic parts of it.

Immunization protocol:

Worming 10 days before vaccination; in case the animal is infested, the vaccine will lose part of its efficiency.
You must do a quick test to determinate if the animal is infected, because sometimes there aren’t any symptoms until later on. If the animal is positive the vaccine is useless.
Primary vaccination:
- 3 doses, 21 days apart between them.
Annual remembrance.

Conclusions:

Leishmaniasis is a serious illness, so that we must fight against it with all the tools of our disposal.

This includes:

Vaccination, using sand fly’s repellents (collar or drops) We would recommend the Scalibor collar & advantix drops, avoiding keep the animal outdoors at dawn and dusk.
Thanks to the vaccination we avoid the need of symptomatic treatment, warranting pet’s health and reducing costs in medication and analytical checks.
The vaccination not only protects our animal from the infection, but also reduces the number of infected animals and therefore the dissemination of the illness to other animals or places.