An outbreak of acute, fatal, hemorrhagic pneumonia was observed in more than 1,000 mixed breed dogs in a single animal shelter. The Department of Anatomic Pathology at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine performed necropsies on dogs that were found moribund in acute respiratory distress or found dead with evidence of nasal bleeding. All dogs had hemothorax and an acute, fibrinosuppurative pneumonia. Large numbers of gram-positive cocci were observed within the lungs of all dogs and within septic thromboemboli of remote organs in about 50% of cases. Bacterial cultures from the dogs and their environment revealed widespread beta-hemolytic Streptococus equi subspecies zooepidemicus (Lancefield Group C). Extensive diagnostic testing failed to reveal the consistent presence of copathogens in individual cases. The clinical, epidemiologic, molecular biologic, and pathologic data indicate that a single clone of S. zooepidemicus was the cause of an acutely fatal respiratory infection in these dogs.
Abstract. Three independent, fatal outbreaks of Streptococcus canis infection occurred in a 2-year period in shelter cats. The outbreaks occurred in Northern California (Yolo County), Southern California (Kern County), and North Carolina (Guilford County). An estimation of the affected population is .150 cats among 3 affected shelters, with a mortality rate of up to 30%. Among 20 cats submitted for necropsy there were 2 distinct pathologic presentations. The first (shelters 1 and 2) was skin ulceration and chronic respiratory infection that progressed, in some cats, to necrotizing sinusitis and meningitis. The second (shelter 3) was rapid progression from necrotizing fasciitis with skin ulceration to toxic shock-like syndrome, sepsis, and death. S canis was the sole pathogen identified in most cases. Whether hypervirulent S canis strains exist is unknown; there is little understanding of how these bacteria cause invasive disease in cats.
Dietary lysine supplementation in the amount used in our study was not a successful means of controlling infectious upper respiratory disease within a cat shelter. Rather, it led to increases in disease severity and the incidence of detection of FHV-1 DNA in oropharyngeal or conjunctival mucosal swab specimens at certain time points.
All Dalmatian dogs have an inherited defect in purine metabolism leading to high levels of uric acid excretion in their urine (hyperuricosuria) rather than allantoin, the normal end product of purine metabolism in all other breeds of dog. Transplantation experiments have demonstrated that the defect is intrinsic to the liver and not the kidney. Uricase, the enzyme involved in the breakdown of urate into allantoin, has been shown to function in Dalmatian liver cells. Therefore, candidate genes for this defect include transporters of urate, a salt of uric acid, across cell membranes. We excluded one such urate transporter candidate, galectin 9, using a Dalmatian x Pointer backcross in which hyperuricosuria was segregating.
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