Dear pet owners
if you are planning a holiday trip to our zone (alicante coast) or you live here permenently, we have to inform you that you will be within an endemic zone. This means that here we have some deseases that may be are not existing or in a low frecuency at your place. Those are deseases like:
Leishmaniosis (transmitted by a mosquito, the Phlebotomo (female)
Ehrlichiosis y Rickettsiosis (transmitted by ticks)
Babesiosis (transmitted by ticks))
and finally Dirofilariosis (but which is more present in the South of Spain, transmitted by mosquito)
We recommend all pet owners to propose a high protection to their animals, which means:
1) antiparasitic collar (e.g Scalibour, Seresto)
2) monthly spot on for the skin (e.g Vectra3, protecting 4 weeks for mosquito)
3) treatment 4 times a year with Leishguard
4) prevention of Dirofilariosis (e.g monthly pill of Milbemax)
We have to mention, that no protection will be 100%, but can be high if we put the above mentioned treatment. The best way to know if your animal is infected or not is in the winter months to realice a blood check to see the titre of those deseases (or in case of symptoms take it to the vet any month of the year)
Symptoms could be:
– skin wounds (over all no healing)
– exagerating nail grow (onicogriposis)
– feels tired in general, anemia (white mucosa)
– limping continuos or sometimes
– cough (over all in Dirofilaria)
– eye symptoms (uveitis, conjunctivitis, red eyes in general)
etc…
it has to be mentiones that over all the leishmaniosis can have a 1000 faces and a lot of times be hidden beyond the symptoms that seem to have another cause then Leishmaniosis.
For more information please conact your vet of confidence, depending on the zone you are going to travel he will inform you about the best prevention to take.