Parvo Study

Australian vets have responded to the concept of “3-year extended duration of immunity (DOI)” in a different manner from the rest of the world. They have requested full disclosure of the research underpinning the call to embrace a paradigm change, from that which works, to that which might work. Extended DOI is a wonderful concept, but when dealing with a disease like Canine Parvovirus, many vets feel they need to be fully informed and confident that what they are being told is backed by scientific data.

Several gaps in the information available have created a concern. One of these relates to Titre Testing Type and Interpretation. Decaro’s paper suggested that perhaps the bar for declared titres once deemed to be protective may need to be reset. Why? Because the old level was done on the now globally extinct 2 strain of Parvo, not the 2a-2c seen around the world currently. So what is a protective level for Australia?

Vets are inherently suspicious that manufacturers will tell you only what they want you to hear, not what you need to know. Vets will trust their personal experience and that of colleagues they trust far more than multi-national vaccine manufacturers.

I used titre tests when I worked in Europe, believing the product information supplied. I then had the experience where supposedly protected dogs succumbed to disease while unprotected dogs (based on titre level) were alive and well in the midst of disease and death. Now I will not believe manufacturers telling me that I should be offering titre tests to my clients. I will however believe my peers, especially if such data can be entered into a central collation point so each kit can be evaluated for accuracy post code by post code.

If this data could then be offered to the epidemiology project currently monitoring the “Disease Watchdog” incidence figures, we could end up with a 2 layered map for each postcode determining disease risk and protective titre level.

In theory, we could determine those areas where the soil microbes or other environmental factors could interfere with vaccine response. Furthermore, the potential will exist to alert breeders that if they are to sell pups into such areas*, the pups must be fully vaccinated BEFORE they go to such a home. Equally, breeders could protect their lines - we know that entire animals are more at risk of not taking up a protective titre from a vaccine than a desexed pet; we know some gene lines are additionally poor responders. The CVE collation site will begin to provide information back to breeders/owners and their veterinarians to make an informed risk management decision as to which vaccine protocol they should be following.

Hopefully with the mapping of Parvo strains by postcode now being done by Boehringer Ingelheim - we will be able to access a 3 layered level of risk, postcode by postcode, that all general practitioners can access to determine “herd immunity” and disease threat levels in their area. Such a level of mapping is unprecedented in the world and will mean Aussie vets will lead the world in data capture and analysis allowing practitioners to make cutting edge, postcode specific, clinical judgements on the vaccination needs of their clients.

I urge all vets who take titre tests to log on to CVE at once and upload their data so epidemiological studies can be done.

I would also hope that laboratories could flag the CVE site on their lab forms as is done for Disease Watch Dog and that the AVA would also support the site in whatever way it can.*

*The need to tailor disease risk/vaccine type by region is so important given the recent publications of a seminal paper showing –“the soil micro-organisms in a location can determine why a “laboratory successful vaccine” can fail spectacularly to provide protection in the inhabitants of a given area”- so not just gene pool dynamics.