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[Lisa]

More battles with blasto
By Jodi Summit
Friday, January 25, 2008
The Timberjay Newspapers
http://www.timberjay.com/current.php?article=4057

Just two weeks ago, Tom Poderzay noticed his chocolate lab, Cocoa, was not feeling well. “He was sluggish and had no appetite,” Poderzay said, “A day later he started coughing.”

Poderzay knew right away that such symptoms in a dog could prove fatal and immediately brought Cocoa to the Ely Vet Clinic. He was worried that Cocoa had contracted a disease called blastomycosis, a disease that had killed many of his neighbor’s dogs over the past few years.

“They checked his blood and his lungs and they seemed okay,” Poderzay said, “But an x-ray showed signs of blastomycosis.”

Treating blastomycosis in dogs is expensive, and even with treatment, many dogs still die. Poderzay said he is lucky that he can afford the medication, which will cost $15 a day for 90 days, as well as related vet visit costs.

Cocoa is more than just a pet to Poderzay. He got the dog after suffering an on-the-job injury.

“I got Cocoa to get myself out exercising every day,” he said. And that he has. “We are out in the woods every day,” he said. He’s an outside dog and loves the water.”

Cocoa has been on medication for about two weeks and is “holding his own,” said Poderzay. But the dog is still not acting his usual self.

“I can see it in his eyes,” he said, “I’m losing sleep because I’m always up checking on him. It hurts to see him having such a hard time.”

“He appears to be on a downslide,” Poderzay said, “He won’t eat. I just went out and bought him some ice cream and he won’t even eat that.”

Poderzay says he blames himself for his dog’s illness, since he’s been taking him outdoors every day. He hopes that others will be on the lookout for symptoms of the disease.

“Everyone has a right to know,” he said.

“Dogs are going to be dogs,” he said, noting that Cocoa is always in the water and loves to rummage around in the woods.

Blastomycosis is a relatively rare fungal disease that can affect both dogs and humans. For some reason, the Lake Vermilion area appears to be a hot spot.

The Ely Vet Clinic has been seeing about 30 cases a year, many of which come from the Tower/Soudan area.

“We certainly had a bad year with more cases than usual,” said Ely Vet Clinic’s Veterinarian Chip Hanson. Hanson said the increase was probably due to weather factors but he wasn’t sure why, noting that half the year was drier than usual and the other half wetter.

Hanson said blastomycosis is by far the most serious fatal infectious disease they see, but he noted that with 12,800 dogs in their practice, the 30 or so cases they have seen this past year are a really small percentage.

“We know that in some places you are really battling the odds with the right type of dog,” Hanson said, noting that the Lake Vermilion, Eagles Nest, Shagawa Lake and Moose Lake areas seem to have the most cases. Breed also makes a difference, with about three-quarter of the cases seen in labs and goldens. Hanson noted that labs are one of the most popular dogs in the area. He said that they don’t know if the preponderance of cases seen in labs and goldens is genetic or simply behavioral since these dogs are more likely to be digging in the damp soil.

In about three-quarters of the cases they see, Hanson said, dogs are brought in with decreased appetite, high temperatures and a subtle cough. In those cases they will start dogs on medication immediately, while they wait for results of blood tests, which takes about a week. Other symptoms they see in dogs with the disease include infections in the skins, eyeballs, spinal cord and bones. Hanson said the newer blood tests available, which are the same tests used to detect the disease in humans, are much more reliable. Since the course of treatment is so long, and the costs of treatment so high, having a reliable means of diagnosing the disease is important.

Hanson said the cost of treating dogs has come down, but still is in the range of $1,000 for a 100-day course of treatment. The clinic is importing drugs from Britain for a quarter the cost of the same drug manufactured in the United States. He said they have tried using generic brands of the medication, but see a significantly better cure rate with the brand name drug.

While blastomycosis is the threat in this area, Hanson said there are similar fungal infections seen in other parts of the country. He said other hot spots for blastomycosis are found in northern Wisconsin and Tennessee.

Several people in Ely had blasto last year. Hanson said he knew of three cases, all treated successfully, including a completely healthy 20-year old girl.

State monitoring

State Public Health Veterinarian Joni Scheftel said the state monitors cases of blastomycosis in both dogs and humans. When they see a cluster of cases, she said, they notify medical and veterinary professionals in the area. But other than that there is no state study of the disease. The Minnesota Department of Health has maps and information on its website that show case numbers by county for both dogs and humans. St. Louis County has by far the largest number of cases.

“Vets in your area are good at diagnosing blastomycosis,” she said, “The problems come when people have traveled to an area and then develop symptoms back home.”

What is blastomycosis

Blastomycosis (B. dermatitidis) is a soil fungus that grows as a mold in moist soil or vegetation. Under certain conditions the mold releases spores that can be inhaled by nearby animals or humans. Once the spores enter the lungs, they transform into a large thick-walled broad-based budding yeast that multiplies within the lungs and other tissues of the infected animal. The greatest prevalence of the fungus appears to be in the upper Midwest, and extends southward along the Mississippi and Ohio River basins.

There is no convenient or reliable means of detecting or eliminating the fungus in the soil. Scientists suspect that the spores are only present for a short period of time, thus creating a great deal of chance on when a dog can be infected.

A dog infected with blastomycosis will not transmit the disease to other dogs or humans since the dog is infected with the yeast form of the disease, though if someone has a pet with the disease, it is possible that they have been infected by the spores at the same time as their dog.

Blastomycosis in dogs

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has been tracking canine cases of blastomycosis since 1997. About 65 cases a year are recorded, with the vast majority seen in St. Louis, Itasca, Beltrami and Cass counties.

Dogs at the highest risk of contracting the disease appear to be two to four-year old intact males of hunting and sporting breeds that weigh 50-75 pounds and are exposed to river valleys or lakes during the late summer and fall.

Blastomycosis in humans

According to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), there are no known practical measures for the prevention of blastomycosis. Early recognition of the symptoms and appropriate treatment is important to reduce the morbidity and mortality. Symptoms of the disease include cough, fatique, fever and skin sores, weight loss, night sweats and chills, headache and chest pain. About 67 percent of cases studied on Minnesota have required hospitalization. There were 11 fatal cases between 1999 and 2002, resulting in a fatality rate of eight percent. An outbreak of blastomycosis in Mt. Iron in 1999 included 18 cases of the disease. The outbreak was linked to a period of above average precipitation, temperatures and dew points compared to previous years. A recent disruption of soil at an excavation site is also thought to have contributed to the outbreak. Dogs were also infected during this outbreak, but their illness onset were generally at the same time as the humans affected, so the dogs were not seen as useful sentinels for the disease.

St. Louis County has the largest number of reported blasto cases from 1999-2006 with 73. The second highest number of cases was seen in Itasca County.

Hennepin County had 20 reported cases and Ramsey County 17, but all but four of those cases were thought to have been contracted in other counties. A tracking map showing blasto cases by probable county of exposure shows St. Louis County again in the lead, with 64 cases linked; the next highest county was Itasca with 14.

The MDH sees about 29 cases of blasto in humans a year, not counting the outbreak year of 1999, with about three deaths a year attributed to the disease.