Canine Babesiosis: Symptoms, Transmission, and Treatment

Babesiosis is a vector-borne parasitic, protozoal disease, and, incidentally, zoonotic, meaning it can accidentally affect humans. It's also known as piroplasmosis.

This disease is endemic in northern Spain, meaning it's typical of these regions with cold climates, so if you live in that area, this article will be very useful, and you should pay special attention to ticks on your dogs.

How Does Canine Babesiosis Attack?

This is a pleomorphic disease caused by intraerythrocytic protozoa, meaning they're found inside the host's red blood cells. It also requires the presence of a vector to survive and complete its life cycle.

These vectors are hard ticks that transmit the disease to our dogs through their bite as they feed, via their saliva. Once in the body, the protozoa attach to the membrane of red blood cells until they get inside them.

Other, less common transmission routes have also been described, which are still worth keeping in mind, such as bites between dogs, transplacental transmission, or blood transfusions.

100 species have been identified, two of which parasitize dogs: B. canis and B. gibsoni. Other species can also affect other carnivorous or herbivorous animals, both wild and domestic.

Learn to Spot Babesiosis

You could say the symptoms of this disease can be summed up under the concept of listlessness. If your dog has canine babesiosis, you'll be able to spot it through an unusual loss of appetite or a lack of energy and desire for any physical activity.

Other common symptoms in dogs include vomiting, fever, pale mucous membranes or jaundice (yellowish mucous membranes), brownish-red colored urine, lymphadenopathy (enlarged, hardened lymph nodes), periorbital edema, etc.

It's a vicious circle, since if the animal stops eating, its energy reserves will drop, and eventually all of this results in loss of appetite and a lack of strength to keep up with its normal life.

Clinicopathologically, it's typical to find hemolytic anemia, caused by the breakdown of red blood cells, thrombocytopenia (reduced platelet count), neutropenia (reduced neutrophils), and occasionally hemoglobinuria (hemoglobin present in the urine).

In an already chronic case of the disease, clinical signs could include myositis, muscle inflammation, and arthritis.

If the animal isn't treated, recovery will take a long time and be followed by relapses that can lead the animal into shock, severe or even fatal kidney failure, and liver disease.

Atypical forms have also been found, with bleeding and DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation), along with significantly serious locomotor, brain, eye, gastrointestinal, and vascular disturbances.

How Is the Disease Confirmed?

Once the disease is detected, treatment must be started as soon as possible. The bad news is that, due to the incubation process — the period from when the parasite enters the body until the first clinical signs appear — which lasts 1 to 3 weeks, by the time the problem is detected, the disease is usually already well established.

To properly confirm the disease, it's essential to detect the presence of the protozoan inside the red blood cells, which requires a blood smear. This is done by drawing a drop of peripheral blood from the patient's ear lobe capillaries or the tip of the tail, then smearing, staining, and examining it under a microscope.

Detection can also be done through serology (IFA, indirect immunofluorescence, or ELISA) and commercial kits that detect the presence of antibodies. Serology has high sensitivity and very high specificity; however, antibodies appear two weeks after the initial infection, so acute infections could go undetected if relying on this technique alone.

Nowadays, though, the diagnostic method increasingly used by more labs, considered the most reliable, involves DNA amplification through polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which makes it possible to diagnose very mild and early parasitemia.

Treatment for Babesiosis

Detecting the disease some weeks after it's contracted brings certain problems. That's why it's necessary to act urgently once the first symptoms are detected — otherwise the dog could suffer serious complications.

The most common solution is to see a vet, who will be able to tell us how serious the problem is and the steps to take to solve it. In severe, advanced cases of the disease, basic support may be needed to stabilize the patient, through maintenance or restorative fluid therapy in severe cases of dehydration and/or shock — and blood transfusions should even be considered for the most serious patients.

Once the patient is stable, treatment with drugs such as imidocarb dipropionate will begin. Canine babesiosis is no joke, especially in splenectomized dogs (dogs whose spleen has been fully or partially removed), immunocompromised dogs, or those with a prior history of Babesia infection.

Given all this, it's clear the best solution for this problem is prevention. And as you probably already know, the best way to fight ticks and their dangers is through proper deworming guided by the vet.

In addition, in endemic areas, dogs have been shown not to develop enough immunity to withstand re-infections. So if your furry friend has already had the disease, it isn't immune to getting sick again, and prevention remains the best option.