Symptoms of SPD begin about one week after eating the salmon and include vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, depression, high fever, and enlarged lymph nodes. Untreated, mortality reaches 90 percent.[4] Death occurs seven to ten days after symptoms begin.[2]
EFF has less severe symptoms than SPD, with less gastrointestinal signs and more lymph node involvement. The mortality in untreated cases is about 10 percent.[3]
A similar disease has been identified in Brazil.[5]
Diagnosis
Diagnosis is through finding the fluke eggs microscopically in a stool sample. A needle aspiration biopsy of an enlarged lymph node will reveal rickettsial organisms within macrophages in many cases.[6] The rickettsial infection can be successfully treated with tetracycline, and the fluke infection can be treated with fenbendazole.
References
^Headley, Selwyn Arlington; Scorpio, Diana G.; Vidotto, Odilon; Dumler, J. Stephen (1 February 2011). "Neorickettsia helminthoeca and salmon poisoning disease: a review". Veterinary Journal. 187 (2): 165โ173. doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2009.11.019. PMID20044285. S2CID510481.
^ abEttinger, Stephen J.; Feldman, Edward C. (1995). Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine (4th ed.). W.B. Saunders Company. ISBN978-0-7216-6795-9.
^Lobetti, Remo (2006). "Infectious Diseases of the GI Tract"(PDF). Proceedings of the 31st World Congress of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
^Johns J, Strasser J, Zinkl J, Christopher M (2006). "Lymph node aspirate from a California wine-country dog". Veterinary Clinical Pathology. 35 (2): 243โ6. doi:10.1111/j.1939-165X.2006.tb00123.x. PMID16783722.