One of our three dogs was found to have leishmania yesterday she is on the whole rather well and still running around. The vet mentioned a new treatment that is in liquid form and taken by mouth by the dog for a total of 4 weeks.The cost is about 200 euros. Prior to this treatment you took the dog for a course of costly injections. The vet states there is every possibility she will be cured with this new treatment. All my dogs wear the white collar and have their avanta treatment on their fur. She can of course catch it again from the sandfly as we live near the rice delta and beaches. I wonder if anyone has heard of this treatment and what was the outcome and if there are any side effects.

my dog had leishmania, he had the injections and then 2 different lots of tablets..he went to new owners and when I last spoke to them he was doing fine

Is Leishmania prevalent across ALL of Spain, i.e. Galicia? I ask because I haven't seen these collars.

A near neighbour's lost a dog to this, but I don't think after the new treatment....I thought this was mainly a summer problem?

what is it?

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasi...leishmania.htm

Its a people problem as well

yesssss

A recent high profile casualty was Ben Fogle.

http://tinyurl.com/5nz348

Luckily he has since recovered.

We live in the Languedoc and our former dog caught it a few years ago. It's caused by a mosquito bite. We had to inject the poor thing three times a day for several weeks. I couldn't bear it, but a kindly neighbour took over. He died (of old age) and we now have another dog and I hope that, if he gets bitten, your liquid treatment will be available in France. Whatever side effects there are, they can't be worse than the distress of being injected by well-wishers (and three visits to the Vet per day for so long would be too expensive). Hope yours soon recovers!

Hello poshnbucks
i have two friends who have a dog with leishmania. They had to have a treatment and both are ok. there is nothing to prevent lesihmania, the collar is just for avoiding parasites. Having some test is the only thing we can do and if the illness is detected in their beginning, then you can treat it and the dog will be ok.
The leishmania is due to mosquito as you all know and that is why the places in where there is more abundant is close to the rivers and in humidity zones.
i wish your dog all the best, and i'm sure she is going to have a very long and happy life.
kind regards
marisol

They are not mosquitoes, they are sandflies. They lay their eggs in the soil so they can be found almost anywhere as opposed to mosquitoes who need water to breed.

The best prevention is get the dogs inside before sundown.

And is it, as I had thought, more prevalent in warmer/hotter weather?

I would assume that sandflies, just like mossies, don't like cold weather as it affects the breeding cycle. If you see a mossie in the winter it's probably breeding and living indoors.

They don't like high temperatures and low humidity which is why they are only active after sunset.

A quick Google came up with this article

http://www.ehponline.org/members/1996/104-7/cross.html

We use the white Scalibor collars. I thought they were good against sandflies.