Parvovirus is a serious and unfortunately common gastrointestinal illness in dogs. In puppies, it can often have dramatic consequences, which can lead to the death of the animal in a few days. This is why it is important to be particularly vigilant during the first weeks of the animal’s life and where it comes from. Parvovirus is one of the crippling vices in dogs.

Parvovirus is a disease of dogs caused by the parvovirus CPV2a or CPV2b. Although it can affect all dogs, this disease is often not fatal in adult dogs but can have serious consequences in young puppies because it mainly targets developing organs. The most common form is hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, often associated with a decline in the animal’s shape. 

The responsible parvovirus is a very small virus (20 to 25 nm). It is a naked and extremely dry virus, which makes it very resistant in the external environment where it can survive for several days or even weeks. This virus is also resistant to temperature changes, which means that pasteurizations at 60 ° of the material will be ineffective, and at acidic pH, which allows it to survive at the pH of the stomach in particular.

Parvovirus has an oral-fecal cycle. It is emitted in very high amounts in the faeces of infected animals, and other dogs will become infected by licking or sniffing a contaminated surface. By all these characteristics, parvovirus is a disease with very strong contagiousness and which can be difficult to get rid of.

The first symptoms appear after an incubation period of 3 to 5 days. Several symptoms are suggestive of parvovirus:

• Decline of the animal and loss of appetite;
• Significant dehydration;
• Hemorrhagic or non-hemorrhagic diarrhea;
• Vomiting.

These symptoms are due to the way the virus works. In dogs, the virus has a strong affinity for developing organs. Thus, in a puppy less than 6 months old, it will mainly target the enterocytes, that is to say the cells of the intestine into which it will be able to penetrate and then replicate. Once multiplied in sufficient numbers, it will cause necrosis and then the explosion of the cell, releasing the new viruses created in the intestine. It is this lysis of the cells of the intestine that explains why the symptoms of parvovirus are essentially digestive and hemorrhagic symptoms.

Parvovirus also frequently causes damage to the immune system, including a decrease in the number of circulating white blood cells. The animal is then more sensitive to secondary bacterial infections.

The diagnosis of parvovirus can be made by your veterinarian, when he identifies several of the above symptoms, which will direct him to this disease. Sometimes the diagnosis can be completed with a full blood count that shows lymphopenia. The definitive diagnosis is made by an ELISA test on the feces.

Unfortunately, there is no really effective treatment for this virus. Your veterinarian will then set up symptomatic treatment to support the animal while its immune system eliminates the virus. This treatment combines anti-emetic, anti-diarrhea, anti-hemorrhagics and antibiotics in order to avoid secondary bacterial infections. It is essential, in addition to this treatment, to provide significant rehydration to the young animal, because it is often this dehydration that can kill it. This is most often carried out by an infusion requiring hospitalization of the animal.

To get rid of the disease, it is imperative to combine health prophylaxis with all these treatments. Indeed, the contagiousness of the disease and its resistance means that there are often a lot of viruses in the external environment. The animal’s living areas must be systematically cleaned and then disinfected with bleach. Sick animals should be quarantined as they continue to shed the virus. Adults should be vaccinated because they are often reservoirs of virus that they can shed asymptomatically. Finally, in environments where many animals are present (kennels, breeding, etc.), a crawl space and emergency vaccination are often necessary to break the cycle of the virus.

Against this disease like many others, the best treatment is prevention. Parvovirus is one of the basic vaccinations for young dogs. If the mother has been properly vaccinated, then she transmits protection to the puppies through antibodies transmitted during gestation and during breastfeeding. These are usually sufficient to protect the puppies for their first 8 weeks. As soon as these 8 weeks have passed, it is essential to have your puppy vaccinated. In risk areas or endemic areas, vaccination of puppies can be anticipated and repeated every 10 to 15 days for up to 12 weeks, where longer immunity sets in.