Detailed Explanation of Prevention and Treatment Methods for Infectious Canine Hepatitis

Infectious canine hepatitis is an acute septicemic infectious disease caused by the infectious canine hepatitis virus. The susceptible animals are young dogs under 1 year of age, often presenting as acute necrotizing hepatitis. This disease occurs throughout the world and is a common canine disease.

In the early stage of onset, the virus mainly exists in the blood of affected dogs, and subsequently appears in various secretions and excretions, and is shed from the body, causing environmental contamination. After recovery, dogs can still shed the virus in urine for 6 to 9 months. Affected dogs and virus-carrying dogs are the sources of infection for this disease. Healthy dogs are mainly infected through the digestive tract, and infection can also occur via the placenta. The virus has strong resistance and can survive for a long time under low-temperature conditions. In soil, it still has pathogenicity after 10 to 14 days, but heating can quickly kill the virus. Diagnosis is based on: (1) Epidemiological characteristics: it can occur regardless of breed, sex, or season, with a higher incidence in winter, and young dogs under 1 year of age are the most susceptible. (2) Clinical symptoms: the initial symptoms are similar to canine distemper. Affected dogs are depressed, have poor appetite, and increased thirst, and may even plunge both forelimbs into water and drink greedily, which is a characteristic symptom of this disease. The body temperature of affected dogs can reach above 40°C and lasts for 4 to 6 days. Vomiting and diarrhea are common, and those with blood in the vomit and feces mostly have a poor prognosis. Most affected dogs have pain in the xiphoid cartilage area. From 7 to 10 days after the acute symptoms disappear, some dogs develop corneal opacity, presenting as white or even blue-white corneal opacity, which is called "hepatitis blue eye" and may disappear after several days. There are bleeding spots on the gums. Those without secondary infection can return to normal within several days. Based on this, a preliminary diagnosis can be made, and confirmation depends on laboratory tests, such as virus isolation, fluorescent antibody staining, and other specific tests. Prevention and control measures: First, maintain good kennel hygiene, breed and raise dogs independently, and strictly prohibit mixing them with other dogs; second, isolate affected dogs and treat them with hyperimmune serum or adult dog serum, once a day, 10 to 30 milliliters each time. Intravenously inject 20 to 40 milliliters of 50% glucose solution, 250 milligrams of vitamin C, or 15 to 20 milligrams of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) daily, once a day, for 3-5 consecutive days. Orally administer glucurolactone tablets. Water intake should be restricted, and 5% glucose saline can be given once every 2 to 3 hours; third, preventive injection. In recent years, veterinary universities have developed a canine five-combined attenuated vaccine (rabies, canine distemper, parainfluenza, infectious hepatitis, parvoviral enteritis) and a canine hepatitis and enteritis dual vaccine. Dogs aged 30 to 90 days are vaccinated 3 times, and dogs over 90 days of age are vaccinated twice, with an interval of 2 to 4 weeks each time. Each injection dose: 2 milliliters for the five-combined vaccine and 1 milliliter for the dual vaccine, which can provide an immunity period of 1 year. The infectious canine hepatitis aluminum hydroxide inactivated vaccine developed by the Nanjing Police Dog Research Institute has a good immune effect in preventing this disease. For dogs aged 1.5-2 months, inoculate twice with the inactivated vaccine at an interval of 15 days, 1 milliliter each time; it can provide at least 6 months of immunity and has good safety for dogs, with no local or systemic reactions, superior to imported infectious canine hepatitis attenuated vaccine.