- Salmon poisoning disease
Salmon poisoning disease (SPD) is a fatal disease of
dog s and other canids caused by infection with a type ofrickettsia , "Neorickettsia helminthoeca ".cite book|author=Ettinger, Stephen J.;Feldman, Edward C.|title=Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine|edition=4th ed.|publisher=W.B. Saunders Company|year=1995|id=ISBN 0-7216-6795-3] It results from eating rawsalmon ,trout , or Pacificgiant salamander and is found in thePacific Northwest . These fish and amphibians are infected withmetacercaria e of a fluke, "Nanophyetus salmincola " through anintermediate host , thesnail "Oxytrema plicifer ". The fluke attaches to the intestine of the dog and the rickettsiae are released, causing severe gastrointestinal disease and systemic infection."
Neorickettsia elokominica ", carried by the same fluke, causes a similar disease known as Elokomin fluke fever (EFF) in canids,bear s,raccoon s, andferret s.cite web | title = Salmon Poisoning Disease and Elokomin Fluke Fever | work = The Merck Veterinary Manual | date = 2006 | url = http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/57305.htm | accessdate = 2007-03-26 ]Symptoms of SPD begin about one week after eating the salmon and include vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, depression, high fever, and enlarged
lymph node s. Untreated, mortality reaches 90 percent. [cite web | last = Lobetti | first = Remo | title = Infectious Diseases of the GI Tract | work = Proceedings of the 31st World Congress of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association | date = 2006 | url = http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/wsava/2006/lecture16/Lobetti2.pdf?LA=1 | format = PDF | accessdate = 2007-03-26 ] Death occurs seven to ten days after symptoms begin.Diagnosis is through finding the fluke eggs microscopically in a stool sample. A
needle aspiration biopsy of an enlarged lymph node will reveal rickettsial organisms withinmacrophage s in many cases. [cite journal |author=Johns J, Strasser J, Zinkl J, Christopher M |title=Lymph node aspirate from a California wine-country dog |journal=Vet Clin Pathol |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=243–6 |year=2006 |pmid=16783722 |doi=10.1111/j.1939-165X.2006.tb00123.x] The rickettsial infection can be successfully treated withantibiotic s such astetracycline , and the fluke infection can be treated withfenbendazole .EFF has less severe symptoms than SPD, with less gastrointestinal signs and more lymph node involvement. The mortality in untreated cases is about ten percent.
A similar disease has been identified in
Brazil . [cite journal |author=Headley S, Vidotto O, Scorpio D, Dumler J, Mankowski J |title=Suspected cases of Neorickettsia-like organisms in Brazilian dogs |journal=Ann N Y Acad Sci |volume=1026 |issue= |pages=79–83 |year=2004 |pmid=15604473 |doi=10.1196/annals.1307.010]References
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