Pets represent a large reservoir for human infection.

Urinary tract disease is a common reason for use (and likely misuse, improper use, and overuse) of antimicrobials in dogs and cats. There is a lack of comprehensive treatment guidelines such as those that are available for human medicine. Accordingly, guidelines for diagnosis and management of urinary tract infections were created by a Working Group of the International Society for Companion Animal Infectious Diseases. While objective data are currently limited, these guidelines provide information to assist in the diagnosis and management of upper and lower urinary tract infections in dogs and cats.

No abstract

In addition to inducing life-threatening illnesses, such as endocarditis, myocarditis, and meningoencephalitis and contributing to chronic debilitating disease, such as arthritis, osteomyelitis, and granulomatous inflammation in cats, dogs, and potentially other animal species; pets and wildlife species can serve as persistently infected reservoir hosts for the transmission of Bartonella spp. infection to veterinary professionals and others with direct animal contact.

Canine babesiosis has recently been recognized as an emerging infectious disease of dogs in North America. We sought to develop a seminested PCR to detect and differentiate Babesia gibsoni (Asian genotype), B. canis subsp. vogeli, B. canis subsp. canis, and B. canis subsp. rossi DNA in canine blood samples. An outer primer pair was designed to amplify an ϳ340-bp fragment of the 18S rRNA genes from B. gibsoni (Asian genotype), B. canis subsp. vogeli, B. canis subsp. rossi, and B. canis subsp. canis but not mammalian DNA. Forward primers were designed that would specifically amplify a smaller fragment from each organism in a seminested PCR. The practical limit of detection was 50 organisms/ml of mock-infected EDTA anticoagulated whole blood. The primer pair also amplified an ϳ370-bp fragment of the B. gibsoni (USA/California genotype) 18S rRNA gene from the blood of an experimentally infected dog with a high percentage of parasitemia. Amplicons were not detected when DNA extracted from the blood of a dog that was naturally infected with Theileria annae at a low percentage of parasitemia was amplified. Due to limited sensitivity, this test is not recommended for the routine diagnosis of B. gibsoni (USA/California genotype) or T. annae. The PCR test did not amplify Toxoplasma gondii, Neospora caninum, Leishmania infantum, Cryptosporidium parvum, or canine DNA under any of the conditions tested. The seminested PCR test was able to detect and discriminate B. gibsoni (Asian genotype), B. canis subsp. vogeli, B. canis subsp. canis, and B. canis subsp. rossi DNA in blood samples from infected dogs.

Respiratory tract disease can be associated with primary or secondary bacterial infections in dogs and cats and is a common reason for use and potential misuse, improper use, and overuse of antimicrobials. There is a lack of comprehensive treatment guidelines such as those that are available for human medicine. Accordingly, the International Society for Companion Animal Infectious Diseases convened a Working Group of clinical microbiologists, pharmacologists, and internists to share experiences, examine scientific data, review clinical trials, and develop these guidelines to assist veterinarians in making antimicrobial treatment choices for use in the management of bacterial respiratory diseases in dogs and cats.

Bartonella spp. are facultative intracellular bacteria that cause characteristic host-restricted hemotropic infections in mammals and are typically transmitted by blood-sucking arthropods. In the mammalian reservoir, these bacteria initially infect a yet unrecognized primary niche, which seeds organisms into the blood stream leading to the establishment of a long-lasting intra-erythrocytic bacteremia as the hall-mark of infection. Bacterial type IV secretion systems, which are supra-molecular transporters ancestrally related to bacterial conjugation systems, represent crucial pathogenicity factors that have contributed to a radial expansion of the Bartonella lineage in nature by facilitating adaptation to unique mammalian hosts. On the molecular level, the type IV secretion system VirB/VirD4 is known to translocate a cocktail of different effector proteins into host cells, which subvert multiple cellular functions to the benefit of the infecting pathogen. Furthermore, bacterial adhesins mediate a critical, early step in the pathogenesis of the bartonellae by binding to extracellular matrix components of host cells, which leads to firm bacterial adhesion to the cell surface as a prerequisite for the efficient translocation of type IV secretion effector proteins. The best-studied adhesins in bartonellae are the orthologous trimeric autotransporter adhesins, BadA in Bartonella henselae and the Vomp family in Bartonella quintana. Genetic diversity and strain variability also appear to enhance the ability of bartonellae to invade not only specific reservoir hosts, but also accidental hosts, as shown for B. henselae. Bartonellae have been identified in many different blood-sucking arthropods, in which they are typically found to cause extracellular infections of the mid-gut epithelium. Adaptation to specific vectors and reservoirs seems to be a common strategy of bartonellae for transmission and host diversity. However, knowledge regarding arthropod specificity/restriction, the mode of transmission, and the bacterial factors involved in arthropod infection and transmission is still limited.

. Bartonella species are gram-negative bacteria that infect erythrocytes, endothelial cells and macrophages, often leading to persistent blood-borne infections. Because of the ability of various Bartonella species to reside within erythrocytes of a diverse number of animal hosts, there is substantial opportunity for the potential uptake of these blood-borne bacteria by a variety of arthropod vectors that feed on animals and people. Five Bartonella species are transmitted by lice, fleas or sandflies. However, Bartonella DNA has been detected or Bartonella spp. have been cultured from numerous other arthropods. This review discusses Bartonella transmission by sandflies, lice and fleas, the potential for transmission by other vectors, and data supporting transmission by ticks. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or culture methods have been used to detect Bartonella in ticks, either questing or host-attached, throughout the world. Case studies and serological or molecular surveys involving humans, cats and canines provide indirect evidence supporting transmission of Bartonella species by ticks. Of potential clinical relevance, many studies have proposed co-transmission of Bartonella with other known tick-borne pathogens. Currently, critically important experimental transmission studies have not been performed for Bartonella transmission by many potential arthropod vectors, including ticks.