Dog Flu Found in North State
By Edie Lau, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Mar. 25–The dog flu has officially reached Northern California.
In one of the first cases in the region, a purebred puppy purchased from an Iowa breeder by a dog owner in the San Francisco area tested positive for canine influenza, Christian Leutenegger, a University of California, Davis, veterinarian, said Friday.
Leutenegger recently developed a speedy, DNA-based diagnostic test for the bug. He and his colleagues have tested more than 100 samples in recent months; most have been negative.
Leutenegger said he thought the Bay Area case, which was diagnosed Feb. 23, was the first in Northern California. But last week, he was contacted by a dog owner in Yolo County whose pet came down with the flu several months ago. In both instances, the dogs recovered.
Veterinarians around the country have been on the alert for canine influenza since it was identified last fall. Until recently, dogs were not known to be susceptible to any flu bug. This subtype of the virus appears to have evolved from the horse flu.
Because of its novelty, the dog flu has attracted a lot of attention, but the bug itself has not proved to be particularly virulent.
While most dogs are thought to be susceptible, only a small fraction become very sick. Researchers say 5 percent or fewer die of it.
Symptoms are similar to the flu in people: The dogs get runny noses and congestion, cough, fever and apparent achiness.
Leutenegger said the sick puppy in the Bay Area lived in a house with three other dogs. One of the other dogs came down with symptoms but tested negative. The other dogs did not get sick.
A mysterious respiratory illness that is now recognized as dog flu first surfaced among racing greyhounds in Florida in 2004. To date, Florida still seems to be the hardest hit of states, accounting for 109 out of 372 cases logged by a diagnostic laboratory at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.
Cornell researchers were part of the team that identified the respiratory bug as a new form of flu.
The prevalence of dog flu is unknown because no one is keeping comprehensive statistics.
Several cases were reported in Southern California last year, but the illness has not spread widely, said Eric Weigand, president of the California Veterinary Medical Association. Weigand runs a private clinic in Claremont and personally has seen no cases of the flu.
He said the Los Angeles County veterinarian conducted surveillance testing for canine influenza, but found no positives and ended the program.
Weigand noted that the flu resembles many other respiratory illnesses in dogs that can be just as bad or worse. “The pet owner doesn’t want to get too focused on just the flu,” he said.
At UC Davis, the diagnostic lab has had three positive cases to date. In addition to the Bay Area puppy, dogs in Colorado and Florida had the bug. Leutenegger said the out-of-state dogs were living in shelters where illnesses of all sorts often spread readily.
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