Canine Leishmaniasis is not easy to diagnose and treat. It is a parasitic pathology, caused by the protozoan Leishmania infantum, which is transmitted to the dog through the bite of an insect, the phlebotomist or sandfly. It looks like a small mosquito, both for its tapered appearance and for the fact that it is a blood-sucking fly.

Leishmania parasites are rather particular  because they need both the body of a phlebotomist and that of a mammal, such as the dog, to develop and multiply: the females of the phlebotomist has to bite the dog and suck the blood in order to lay the eggs. If the dog is infected, Leishmania parasites move into the stomach of the insect  where they develop, multiply and become infectious. Thus, when sandflies bite a healthy dog, parasites are transmitted through the bite.

The sandflies strike especially in the hot season, from May to October just like mosquitoes, they appear mainly at sunset and are widespread in tropical and sub-tropical areas and throughout the Mediterranean basin, including islands. The gradual but persistent earth’s global warming leads to an increasein the presence of sandflies in areas with a more temperate climate, such as northern Italy where no outbreak has been reported so far.

A generalized disease also called viscero-cutaneous form is reported in dogs. Infection does not always lead to disease, in fact many infected dogs remain asymptomatic for life, without developing clinical manifestations. The clinical status of Leishmaniasis in dogs shows a great variability of symptoms and lesions depending on the level of infestation, the immune status of the host and the stage of  development and infected organs.

When the disease develops, the symptoms are not immediate: they may appear after a few weeks or even a few months after the bite of sandfly, and these may occur individually or all together, at the same time.