Leptospirosis - Man and Beast

Leptospirosis is an old bacterial disease that is getting a lot of new attention recently. It is rarely fatal, but can seriously damage the liver, kidneys, and eyes. Additional strains of this old disease are causing an increased number of cases in both people and animals. Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease - a disease that can be transmitted between people and animals. Learn what can be causing this increase of Leptospirosis - who is at risk, and what can be done to protect people and pets.

• Category

  Pets & Animals

[amomynonimous]

im 35 and when i was a kid you didnt bring a dog to the vet unless they were injured... purebred/indred dogs and cats are weak and cant fight disease because they arent getting the genetic variety all species need to adapt. also all these indoor pets dont get exposed and therefor dont pass on resistance, so after 5 generations of limited exposure with limited ghenetic variety these animals lose their ability to fight things your average mut hardly notices.

[MyVNN]

@amomynonimous: If your pets haven't gotten sick despite not having vaccines, you have been very lucky. As someone who has spent more than 25 years working with animals, I can tell you that "mutts" get sick just as often as purebred dogs and cats and being indoors is not always a foolproof method of protecting your pet. Hybrid vigor can help with some things, but mutts get lepto and parvo and distemper just as frequently as our other purebred pets!

[Low YellowSun]

In 1975 while traveling 3rd class in India, in Agra I met a German traveler who had become sick in Sri Lanka and was now deathly ill. An American who spoke German, I went with him to the local university teaching hospital. He became jaundiced with a rash of rosettes all over his body. The German embassy transported us to All India Institute in New Delhi. Despite dialysis, he died 2 days later. I fled to NY City Hospital in US and my antibodies showed I had recently fought off leptospirosis.

[Matt Thompson]

oh ya i know u know.. yup, some pipl here think its funny.they treat us like stupid foreigners but we've been here a long time and are "in the know". sometimes though shit happens. i hope your liver didnt get messed up.

[poolboyinla]

I know how to keep from getting sick, but when I taped that show, things were out of my control and they deliberately put me in a place full of rats.

[Matt Thompson]

bro, i never eat or drink anything my wife doesn't prepare at home! i ate at the LTO last month and once at Quezon City Hall. i had the shits for a week each time! and now this malady is around too? well i never touch any animals or pets here. i only drink purified water from my friends water store. I'm a dual organ transplant recipient and i was told never drink tap water even in America. i find very little sanitation here .

[poolboyinla]

I had leptospirosis. It is a nightmare. It is common for white people that go to the tropics. I got it taping a TV show in the slums of the Philippines.

[vasallizinni]

Sounds like this disease is a danger to humans. Not all people have the means to see a doctor at the onset of the first signs of this diease, since it is not easy to detect if they have a disease at all. It is one thing for those who choose to own pets and deal with zoonotic diseases, however for those who don't own pets, free roaming cats can spread this disease to them. The free roaming cat is an imposition to others and poses a health risk to all humans. This practice should be ended.

[rumit99]

because of the wonderful healthcare we have in the US, dogs get to see a veterinarian more often than people get to see a physician.

[ButtersStotch7000]

My dog just died two weeks ago because of severe kidney damage caused by leptospirosis. He was only ten. If it weren't for this, he could have easily lived to thirteen or fourteen years old.

We tried fluid therapy and antibiotics, but even though we beat the infection, the damage had already been done.

What our vet told us is that the disease can also be spread by the urine of infected animals (squirrels, racoons, etc), and the current vaccine protects agains four out of 250~ strains.