Critical gaps in vaccination and infection control led to a leptospirosis outbreak that sickened more than 200 Los Angeles County dogs in 2021, according to a new study.
The outbreak occurred at doggie daycares, where close contact between pooches likely accelerated dog-to-dog transmission, researchers reported May 26 in thevaccinations because the bacteria thrive in water from heavy rainfall and L.A. is an arid climate,” said senior researcher Jane Sykes, a professor of small animal internal medicine at the University of California-Davis.
“It was considered a low risk. ” During the peak of the outbreak, some vet clinics were seeing more than one case of leptospirosis a day coming from dogs that had recently been at doggie daycares on the west side of Los Angeles County, researchers said.
“The outbreak was massive,” Sykes said in a news release. “It might have been the biggest outbreak of leptospirosis in dogs that's ever been recognized. ” Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that can cause severe illness, kidney damage and even death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Humans also can contract the disease through contact with contaminated animal urine or contaminated water, but no human cases were linked to the Los Angeles outbreak, researchers said.
“It's probably the tip of the iceberg,” Sykes said. “There are probably more unrecognized cases than we know about. ” At the height of the outbreak, some L.A. -area doggie daycares temporarily closed and vaccination rates increased.
This caused the outbreak to eventually subside. For the study, researchers compared 59 confirmed cases from two specialty veterinary centers with more than 15,000 healthy dogs. And while the LA outbreak was centered in high-end doggie daycares, cases also have occurred in homeless encampments in the Northern California communities of Berkeley and Oakland.
“This disease — there's no boundaries for it,” Sykes said. “We're talking about dogs with this disease owned by wealthy people in L.A. and dogs that are in homeless encampments on the streets of Berkeley dying with this disease because of rodent exposure. ” Early findings from the Bay Area show high infection rates in local rat populations, making them the most likely hosts for leptospirosis.
Vaccination is the most effective way to protect dogs and reduce the risk of transmission to people, researchers said. Major veterinary organizations now recommend annual leptospirosis vaccination for all dogs, researchers said. The bacterial infection is expected to become more common with climate change. SOURCE: University of California-Davis, news release, May 26, 2026What is the best age to adopt a puppy?
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