Study on Ehrlichia canis disease in dogs and evaluating the treatment efficacy at the Veterinary Clinic of Can Tho University

Abstract

The research was carried out to investigate Ehrlichia canis (E. canis) disease in dogs and evaluate the treatment efficacy in the Veterinary Clinic of Can Tho University. The determination of E. canis disease in dogs was performed by cross-sectional study on 2,034 dogs. The studied results showed that there were 86 out of 2,034 dogs (4.23%) identified with the signs of E. canis disease by the clinical diagnosis method. Thirty-seven out of 86 dogs were positive with E. canis by quick test method, accounting for 43.02% and 1.82% compared with a total of the investigated dogs. In addition, E. canis disease in dogs did not depend on the dog age, breeds, sex and rearing modality (P>0.05). The studied results indicated that 37 dogs (100%) were found to be infected with ticks presenting several manifestations, such as: dull, depressed (83.78%); anorexia, weight loss (75.66%); fever (67.57%); dermal and mucous petechiae
(54.05%); epistaxis (21.62%); eye problems (18.92%). A total of 32 out of 37 dogs (86.49%) was treated successfully by using doxycycline (5 mg/kg body weight, by oral route in 28 days).