Get in the know with Lepto
Christopher Lee, DVM, MPH, DACVPM, provides listeners with more information on Leptospirosis, including whether or not vaccinations are dangerous for patients.
On this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, our host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, sat down with Christopher Lee, DVM, MPH, DACVPM, to provide listeners more information on leptospirosis (lepto). Through the episode, Lee and Christman debunk myths surrounding the vaccinations and how almost everyone, including dogs and cats, are at risk for lepto, the issues with prevalence data, and how crucial testing for lepto really is to not only protect pets, but public health as well.
Below is a partial transcript
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Let's chat a little bit about the prevalence of lepto. What do we know about the prevalence?
Christopher Lee, DVM, MPH, DACVPM: This is one of the most common questions that I get asked when speaking on lepto. And you know, a lot of times I'll ask the audience like, how often do you test? And it as time goes on, I'm getting a lot more people saying, 'oh, fairly regularly, to weekly to daily,' but I still get a lot of people that go, 'oh, well, we don't test because we don't see it here.' It's like, well, if you don't test, you probably wouldn't see it. But it becomes an issue of because we've been kind of trained that maybe we're not in a lepto area and we're not testing, and then we go, Well, maybe I, maybe I should rethink this, right? We've all thought that. And if you're listening to this podcast, you probably thought, gosh, maybe let me look it up.
And if you look at any of the prevalence data, you're like, Well, I don't know. Should I be vaccinating? The problem is, is that we make up that data. Additionally, in veterinary medicine, we virtually don't have prevalence data. When you take a look at a lot of the prevalence maps, there is not true prevalence data within that.
For example, CAPC maps, which are some of the most amazing things out there. I love that tool. It is just amazing. However, to know that from again, my specialty is a lot of biostatistics, there is no true prevalence or incidence data within that prevalence map. And what it is, it's more of test positivity, so it's what is being sent, and what's the percentage of there. So they're good data, but we don't have the prevalence. The key of the vaccines is really then, well, you know, should we or should we not? How do I know?
