A surveillance program on canine Leishmaniasis in the public kennels of Emilia-Romagna Region, Northern Italy

Since 2007, a canine leishmaniasis (CanL) surveillance program has been carried out in public kennels of the Emilia-Romagna region with the aim of providing health guarantees for dog adoptions. According to this program, monitoring activities were performed to verify the presence of sandflies and infected dogs, and a specific CanL risk class was assigned to each kennel, resulting in different control approaches (entomological and/or serological monitoring, clinical surveillance, therapeutic treatment of infected dogs, protections against vector bites). From 2007 to 2012, 20,931 dogs, 89.8% of which were identified by microchip and housed in 73 kennels, were examined using an indirect fluorescent antibody test. In all, 528 (2.8%) dogs tested positive, and 43.0% of these were asymptomatic. The authors used monitoring results, in particular serological tests performed on dogs at admittance to the kennel and annual controls of sentinel dogs, to estimate CanL risk in the whole region and to evaluate the efficacy of the preventive measures adopted. CanL seroprevalence in dogs tested at the admittance in kennels increased significantly from 2010 (1.0%; 29/2858) to 2012 (2.4%; 69/2841). In contrast, the number of seroconversions in sentinel dogs was stable in 2010 (1.2%; 11/896) and 2011 (1.6%; 13/825) and decreased in 2012 (0.9%; 8/850), suggesting the efficacy of the preventive measures applied.