Dr Kavi­ta Per­sad

As the rainy sea­son re­turns to Trinidad, so does the rise of par­vovirus cas­es seen in pup­pies. Ca­nine par­vovirus, com­mon­ly known as “par­vo” or even mis­pro­nounced “par­go”, is one of the most se­ri­ous, con­ta­gious dis­eases that af­fects dogs, par­tic­u­lar­ly un­vac­ci­nat­ed pup­pies, lead­ing to se­vere ill­ness and death in Trinidad through­out the year.

The dis­ease main­ly af­fects the gas­troin­testi­nal sys­tem, at­tack­ing cells that line the in­testines, which re­sults in se­vere gas­troin­testi­nal dis­ease, mak­ing the af­fect­ed pup­py vul­ner­a­ble to life-threat­en­ing com­pli­ca­tions and even re­sult­ing in death.

The virus is high­ly stur­dy and tends to per­sist well in moist or cool en­vi­ron­ments where it can sur­vive for months or even years in soil, yards, ken­nels, side­walks or any oth­er ar­eas where an in­fect­ed dog may have been. It is spread through con­tact with in­fect­ed fae­ces or these con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed en­vi­ron­ments. Dur­ing the rainy sea­son, the risk of spread is even greater due to heavy rain, flood­ing and runoff of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed ma­te­r­i­al in­to com­mu­nal ar­eas. One oth­er thing to note is our blos­som­ing man­go and oth­er fruit trees dur­ing the rainy sea­son, where we see an in­creas­ing fly pop­u­la­tion, which is an­oth­er po­ten­tial vec­tor for the dis­ease if they land on con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed fae­ces and trans­fer them to an­oth­er sur­face.

Pup­pies un­der six months of age are most at risk, es­pe­cial­ly those that are un­vac­ci­nat­ed or have not com­plet­ed their vac­ci­na­tion se­ries. Old­er dogs, how­ev­er, can still be­come in­fect­ed. Com­mon signs of in­fec­tion in­clude loss of ap­petite, lethar­gy, vom­it­ing, di­ar­rhoea, which of­ten be­comes pro­fuse­ly bloody, de­hy­dra­tion and even weight loss. These signs progress quite rapid­ly with­in hours, there­fore, seek­ing vet­eri­nary at­ten­tion is ur­gent in or­der to di­ag­nose, treat and in­crease chances of sur­vival.

There is no di­rect med­ica­tion for the virus it­self, but treat­ment of­ten in­cludes sup­port­ive care while the im­mune sys­tem fights the in­fec­tion. This may in­clude in­tra­venous flu­ids, an­ti-nau­sea med­ica­tion, an­tibi­otics and nu­tri­tion­al sup­port. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, even with the most in­ten­sive care, the dis­ease may re­sult in fa­tal­i­ty.

So, what can we as pet own­ers do for our beloved fur ba­bies to pro­tect them from con­tract­ing the virus? The good news is that par­vovirus is high­ly pre­ventable through a se­ries of vac­ci­na­tions. Pup­pies should be­gin their vac­cine process from six weeks of age, where they re­ceive a boost­er every three weeks un­til they are rough­ly 16 weeks of age. Adult dogs should al­so re­main up­dat­ed with their an­nu­al vac­ci­na­tions. Oth­er mea­sures can be tak­en to pre­vent in­fec­tion, such as lim­it­ing ex­po­sure un­til pup­pies are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. This would in­clude beach­es, parks, side­walks and oth­er ar­eas heav­i­ly fre­quent­ed by dogs or where there is heavy foot traf­fic. Dis­in­fect­ing ar­eas prop­er­ly with par­tic­u­lar­ly di­lut­ed bleach is al­so high­ly rec­om­mend­ed, as the virus is re­sis­tant to many com­mon dis­in­fec­tants. Most im­por­tant­ly, fol­low the en­tire vac­cine se­ries. I must em­pha­sise one vac­cine is not enough, as miss­ing boost­ers leaves gaps in pro­tec­tion. Vac­ci­na­tions should al­so be ad­min­is­tered by li­cenced vet­eri­nar­i­ans, which helps en­sure that vac­cines have been prop­er­ly stored and han­dled, that the pup­py re­ceives the cor­rect vac­ci­na­tion sched­ule and that any un­der­ly­ing health con­cerns are iden­ti­fied ear­ly be­fore ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Re­mem­ber, pro­tect­ing your pup­py starts with you. Please con­sult your vet­eri­nar­i­an if you have any ques­tions about your dog’s vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus or the risk of par­vovirus.

Dr Kavi­ta Per­sad (Hons) is a vet­eri­nar­i­an at Lu­na Light Vet­eri­nary Clin­ic. She is com­mit­ted to pre­ven­tive health­care, client ed­u­ca­tion, and com­pas­sion­ate vet­eri­nary med­i­cine.

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