Beyond Human Health: Spotted Fever’s Impact on Domestic Animals

Brazil recorded a series of deaths of people suffering from spotted fever, which raised concern among authorities. By the beginning of July this year, the Ministry of Health had confirmed 60 cases of the disease throughout the country, 11 of which resulted in death. Just this week, Campinas confirmed the seventh death from spotted fever. The concern should not only be about the transmission of the disease to humans. The danger also extends to pets.

Despite being more commonly found in wild or captive animals, such as capybaras, rabbits, horses and cattle, the star tick can also affect pets, especially dogs. Rocky Mountain spotted fever is an infectious disease transmitted by the bite of an infected tick, mainly the star tick. 

According to veterinarian Isabelle Rodrigues dos Santos, Master of Science and PhD in Physiology at USP, although the star tick is known to infest a wide variety of hosts, including wild and farmed animals, domestic animals, such as dogs and Cats are also likely to be hosts of this type of tick, which can harm the health of pets.

“Especially dogs, mainly due to the behavior of the species. An example of this is the time spent outdoors in gardens, parks, forests, in places where there is a greater probability of finding these ticks”, says the veterinarian. Furthermore, Isabelle explains that they tend to have environmental exploration behavior, facilitating exposure to areas infested by ticks.

Care and prevention 

It is very important that pet owners pay attention to their animals after walks in risky places. The specialist recommends the use of repellent collars, sprays and topical medications that can be applied directly to the animal’s skin, facilitating the death of ticks, as well as oral medications as a form of prevention.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever in dogs and cats can cause symptoms ranging from simple itching to hemorrhagic lesions. “These are symptoms that are not classic for spotted fever and can be easily confused with other types of disease, but when associated with the presence of ticks on the animal’s skin, it greatly facilitates veterinary diagnosis”, points out Isabelle. 

Human health 

In addition to being a harmful disease for the animals themselves, care and attention must be considered about what they represent for human health as well. Occupational Safety technician Ana Paula de Tolvo Miranda Molero, from the Specialized Service in Safety Engineering and Occupational Medicine (SESMT) at USP, in Ribeirão Preto, reinforces the care with prevention, as pets can serve as transport for the tick. 

According to her, the ideal is to keep the grass trimmed to allow sunlight and facilitate tick dissection; flag areas where ticks are present; if it is essential to enter areas of infestation, inspect the body at intervals of less than three hours and, if possible, wear white clothes, long sleeves, pants and sealed boots, boiling them after use if necessary; When you find a tick on your body, remove it with tweezers. 

“If you have any symptoms of spotted fever, you should always seek medical attention and let them know that you have been in areas that may have ticks or that have any wild animals. Even if you don’t find a tick on your body, you should report it to the doctor”, advises Ana Paula.

At first, spotted fever may present symptoms similar to those of other diseases such as dengue, some viruses, bacterial diseases, among others. Professor of the Department of Medicine at UFSCAR (Federal University of São Carlos) Felipe Carvalho, infectious disease specialist at the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (HC-FMRP) at USP and specialist on the subject, explains that, at the beginning, patients They may present with a high fever, pink or red spots on the skin, headache, body and joint pain, vomiting and diarrhea, loss of appetite, malaise and malaise. 

The problem begins on the fourth or fifth day, when the patient’s condition worsens. “The picture of vascular damage intensifies and the manifestations become much more serious. The patient may experience renal, respiratory and cardiac failure, hemorrhagic and neurological manifestations, multiple organ failure and even death,” he describes. 

In this case, the specialist addresses classic spotted fever, caused by Rickettsia rickettsii , which presents a more serious evolution than the other caused by Rickettsia parkeri. “The great difficulty is to make the diagnosis and start treatment early, at a time when it is possible to prevent the progression of vascular damage, thus avoiding complications, sequelae and eventually the death of patients”, concludes the infectious disease specialist.