Can i get valley fever from my dog

The only prevention available is never visiting or stopping or breathing the air of Southern Arizona. If you live, visit or breathe in Southern Arizona, you have most likely been exposed to Valley Fever! There is no vaccine and no way to prevent your pet from getting Valley Fever.

Valley Fever is a fungus that lives in our soil and gets picked up by the wind or construction and is disseminated like pollen. Due to this there is simply no way of escaping the spore. Work on a vaccine has been going on for some time; but, due to the limited pool of pets and people exposed to Valley Fever and the prohibitive costs of vaccine production, it is unlikely that we will see one anytime soon.

Valley Fever is NOT contagious! It is spread through the air to enter our bodies, but once we have it we cannot pass it on in any way. Valley Fever can be treated, and in most cases treatment is effective. Treatment can be prolonged due to the fact that Valley Fever is a fungal disease which is harder to beat than bacterial diseases. These fungi are mainly a concern in people with compromised immune systems.

When illness occurs, flu-like disease, respiratory disease, rash and joint pain are the most common signs, but disseminated infection i. Valley Fever is similar in dogs, with most dogs have mild to inapparent disease, and most sick dogs having vague signs and respiratory disease.

Cats often develop skin lesion. Disseminated disease can also occur. While coccidioidomycosis can occur in both humans and animals, the risk of transmission between humans and animals is extremely low.

Valley Fever endemic areas are among the fastest growing regions in the country, which makes encounters of animals and people with the fungus a likely event. Treating the soil is currently not practical as the fungus lives in spotty areas and can live up to 12 inches deep in the ground. Yard ground cover that reduces dust, however, is helpful: grass and deep gravel or other dust-controlling cover. A vaccine is under development. Vaccination against Valley Fever would be very useful for animals traveling to places like southern Arizona and southern California as well as for those dogs that live in these places.

Some or all of these symptoms may be present as a result of infection in the lungs. As the infection progresses, dogs can develop pneumonia that is visible on x-rays. When the infection spreads outside the lungs, it causes disseminated disease. The most common symptom of disseminated disease in dogs is lameness; the fungus has a predilection for infecting bones of the legs in dogs. However, Valley Fever can occur in almost any bone or organ of dogs. Sometimes a dog will not have any signs of a primary infection in the lungs, such as coughing, but will only develop symptoms of disseminated disease, e.

What about open sores or draining lesions? Can these make me sick or spread the fungus to the environment? The form of the organism in the fluid of draining lesions is not considered to be infectious to people or animals. Nevertheless, draining lesions are best handled in a way to minimize the fluid in your environment.

Bandages should be changed daily or every other day and discarded in outside waste containers to minimize risk of having spores grow on the bandage material and become a risk to humans and others in the house. Hands should be washed after handling the wounds or bandages.

In difficult cases, the routine tests are not very helpful in the diagnosis. Your veterinarian may recommend other tests to find out what is making your dog sick. In addition, your dog will need some serum chemistries and white blood cell counts and sometimes x-rays to aid in diagnosing the illness. A positive test in and of itself is often not enough to diagnose Valley Fever.

A Valley Fever test, Cocci test, or Cocci titer checks the blood to see if your dog is making antibodies against the Valley Fever fungus. If the test is positive, it means your dog has been infected with the fungus.

If the Valley Fever test is positive, the laboratory then performs a titer. A titer is obtained by doubling dilutions of the positive blood , , , The titer that is reported to your veterinarian is the last positive dilution. In broad terms, a higher titer is equated with more severe disease. For these dogs, other diagnostic tests are necessary for diagnosing the illness. X-rays, blood cell counts, biopsies, and microscopic examination of cellular specimens are a few of the tests your veterinarian may need to run.

The titer is helpful in diagnosing Valley Fever in sick dogs, but other tests are usually needed to confirm the diagnosis. Some dogs will remain Valley Fever positive with a low titer for life. In most cases, a dog ill enough from Valley Fever to be seen by a veterinarian will require treatment with antifungal medication.

Oral antifungal medication in the form of twice daily pills or capsules is the usual treatment for Valley Fever. Avoid activities that generate dust, reduce digging behavior by dogs, prevent sniffing in rodent holes, and keep dogs indoors more than outdoors. Treating the soil is currently not practical as the fungus lives in spotty areas and can live up to 12 inches deep in the ground.

Yard ground cover that reduces dust, however, is helpful: grass and deep gravel or other dust-controlling cover. It is possible a vaccine will be available in the future to prevent Valley Fever or make it only a very mild illness in dogs.

Vaccination against Valley Fever would be very useful for animals traveling to places like southern Arizona and southern California as well as for those dogs that live in these places. Donate to the Valley Fever Vaccine Project.

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