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CANINE CORONAVIRUS (CCV)
Coronavirus (CCV) is a virus which can cause severe illness in dogs that at first glance looks like a Parvovirus infection.
How does CCV spread?
Coronavirus can be picked up by dogs sniffing long grass where infected dogs have gone to the toilet up to one year ago. In other words, its not directly from dog to dog. Just a walk in the park and that's it!
Incidence
A recent study showed approx. 16% of dogs have come in contact with CCV in the last 12 months (that’s about one in every 6 dogs).
Symptoms
Coronavirus causes severe bloody watery diarrhoea, shock, abdominal pain and vomiting. There is variable mortality amongst puppies and older dogs. Signs appear very suddenly. The diarrhoea looks and smells just like Parvovirus. We see approx. 1-2 affected dogs each month.
Treatment
Treatment must be quick and aggressive to save these sick dogs. It usually involves an IV drip, anti-biotics, blood and faecal tests and intensive care. Luckily, it has a lower fatality rate and quicker recovery rate than Parvovirus
Needless to say, the costs mount up and affected dogs feel pretty ill for a few days.
Concurrent infection with Canine Parvovirus (CPV)
Concurrent infection with canine Parvovirus (CPV) is not uncommon. CCV was reportedly isolated from dogs with diarrhoea during the CPV epidemics in 1978.
Dual CCV-CPV infections were identified in 15-25% of cases of severe enteritis in the USA.
Another study showed that CCV was found in 44% of fatal gastro-enteritis cases that were initially identified as only CPV disease.
A combined infection leads to a much more severe disease than occurs with either CCV or CPV alone, and is often fatal.
| Group | Severity of signs | Mortality rate | Recovery rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| CCV | + | 0% | 100% |
| CPV | +++ | 0% | 100% |
| CCV + CPV | +++++ | 89% | 11% |
The reason for this is that the two viruses infect different sites of the intestinal villi, leading to more extensive epithelial damage (Figure 2). CCV only infects the cells of the upper two-thirds of the intestinal villi. During the recovery phase of CCV infection, the crypt cells divide more rapidly replacing the lost cells
Well, there is always a good side to a story and that is Fort Dodge (who make the Protech C3 and Protech C5 range of vaccines we use at BVH) are releasing Protech Duramune C2i which has Coronavirus plus another vaccine called Leptospirosis in it.
The Protech Duramune C2i vaccine needs to shots 4 weeks apart to work. Once this has happened, then its an annual vaccine in combination with the Protech C3 or Protech C5.
Ask us for the new Protech vaccine when your dog’s next vaccine falls due.