Canine Leishmaniasis Control in the Context of One Health (original) (raw)

2019, Emerging Infectious Diseases

Dogs are the main reservoir of Leishmania infantum and in some countries have been regularly culled as part of government policy to control visceral leishmaniasis. At the 13th Symposium of the Companion Vector-Borne Diseases World Forum in Windsor, UK, March 19-22, 2018, we consolidated a consensus statement regarding the usefulness of dog culling as a means of controlling visceral leishmaniasis. The statement highlighted the futility of culling infected dogs, whether healthy or sick, as a measure to control the domestic reservoir of L. infantum and reduce the risk for visceral leishmaniasis. V isceral leishmaniasis (VL), caused by Leishmania donovani in Asia and Africa and by L. infantum in the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, Central Asia, South America, and Central America, is a life-threatening disease that affects ≈200,000-400,000 persons annually and causes an estimated ≈20,000-40,000 deaths per year (1,2). Although an increasing number of other mammalian hosts, including infected humans, have served as effective reservoirs by infecting phlebotomine sand fly vectors, dogs remain a pivotal indirect source in many situations where the transmission cycle of L. infantum occurs (3,4). Over the years, millions of dogs have been killed as part of government policies to control human VL caused by L. infantum, also known as zoonotic VL (5). The national public health policies of Central Asian, Caucasian, and some Balkan countries still recommend culling any L. infantum-positive dog (1). In rural areas of China, the Maghreb countries (North Africa), and parts of the Middle East, dog culling remains common practice (1), although medical therapy is usually allowed for dogs that are owned. In Central and South America, dog culling has been recommended and practiced in several countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, and Venezuela (1). Nonetheless, this practice has been replaced by more effective approaches, even in countries like Brazil, where thousands of dogs used to be culled every year (5).