Increasing Incidence of Canine Leptospirosis in Switzerland

Andrea Major, Ariane Schweighauser and Thierry Francey
Additional contact information
Andrea Major: Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Vetsuisse Faculty University of Bern, Länggassstrasse 128, CH-3001 Bern, Switzerland
Ariane Schweighauser: Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Vetsuisse Faculty University of Bern, Länggassstrasse 128, CH-3001 Bern, Switzerland
Thierry Francey: Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Vetsuisse Faculty University of Bern, Länggassstrasse 128, CH-3001 Bern, Switzerland

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: A marked increase in canine leptospirosis was observed in Switzerland over 10 years with a peak incidence of 28.1 diagnosed cases/100,000 dogs/year in the most affected canton. With 95% affected dogs living at altitudes <800 m, the disease presented a seasonal pattern associated with temperature ( r 2 0.73) and rainfall ( r 2 0.39), >90% cases being diagnosed between May and October. The increasing yearly incidence however was only weakly correlated with climatic data including number of summer ( r 2 0.25) or rainy days ( r 2 0.38). Serovars Australis and Bratislava showed the highest seropositivity rates with 70.5% and 69.1%, respectively. Main clinical manifestations included renal (99.6%), pulmonary (76.7%), hepatic (26.0%), and hemorrhagic syndromes (18.2%), leading to a high mortality rate (43.3%). Similar to the human disease, liver involvement had the strongest association with negative outcome (OR 16.3). Based on these data, canine leptospirosis presents similar features and severity as the human infection for which it therefore can be considered a model. Its re-emergence in a temperate country with very high incidence rates in canines should thus be viewed as a warning and emphasize the need for increased awareness in other species.

Keywords: leptospirosis; dog; zoonosis; climatic data; one health; renal failure; pulmonary hemorrhage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/7/7242/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/7/7242/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:7:p:7242-7260:d:38217

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().