Distemper: ‘If we don’t vaccinate, there are those who will die’

When it comes to distemper in your dog, prevention is possible but a cure usually is not.

This is according to Dr Alain Carter, a specialist physician and co-founder of the Fourways Vet Hospital off of Witkoppen Road, who completed his specialist thesis on the virus during his studies and has been a vet since 1983. He urges dog owners to do the responsible thing and make sure their dog’s vaccines are up to date as Gauteng faces an outbreak of distemper.

“Distemper is a virus that affects the respiratory, urogenital, gastrointestinal, and nervous systems in dogs,” he told the Fourways Review. “It can also be found in a few non-domestic animal species such as ferrets or foxes.”

An outbreak of the virus was reported in Gauteng in January when the Waltloo branch of the Tswane SPCA made a statement informing the public of the outbreak at their kennels. They also announced that the kennels would be quarantined in response to the situation. According to the Boksburg Advertiser, the illness was first reported in Kysna in May 2018 and spread to KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape before appearing in Gauteng.

But what should dog owners look for if they are worried about their furry friends contracting the virus?

“Owners will see respiratory symptoms first,” Carter said. “Discharge will be found around the dog’s nose and eyes, which lasts a few weeks.”

Other symptoms include fever, red eyes, a tired and lethargic dog, vomiting and diarrhoea.

“Of the dogs that reach that point, a large percentage of sufferers will develop nervous signs when the virus reaches the brain. If it reaches this point, many of the dogs will die (about 70 per cent) and those which don’t might be left with myoclonus, which is a neurological condition.”

In the early stages of infection, vets can treat the symptoms of distemper but cannot do anything to address the actual cause. Distemper is spread through contact with an ill dog.

The distemper virus is easily spread and often fatal, but there is good news for dog owners – the illness can be almost entirely prevented by vaccination.

“Dogs can definitely have a good immunity [to distemper]. For the first six weeks of life, a puppy is projected by their mother’s immunity [called passive immunity]. Once they are old enough to get their shots, the distemper vaccine is almost 100 per cent effective against the disease.”

Carter recommends that puppies get their first vaccinations against distemper (and other serious diseases such as parvo and rabies) when they are between six and eight weeks old, and their one-year inoculations at about 12 months.

“After that, I’d recommend getting booster vaccines every three years or so.”

Fortunately, the current outbreak does not seem to have reached Fourways as neither Carter nor his colleagues have seen a case recently.

“I think part of the reason for this is because so many dogs here are vaccinated, and those that are not are protected by herd immunity,” he said.

Herd immunity is when a high percentage of the population (of dogs in this case) is vaccinated from a disease, meaning that the disease cannot easily spread through the population and even those who are unvaccinated have some measure of protection from the illness.

This, however, does not mean that pet owners can be lax about taking the necessary precautions against this and other illnesses, Carter warns.

“We have to vaccinate because it protects against so many diseases. It’s the same as with people – if you don’t vaccinate there are those who will die,” Carter concluded.

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