Retrospective study of sporotrichosis in companion animal cases presented to veterinary teaching hospital, university malaysia kelantan

An abstract of the research paper was presented to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine,
University Malaysia Kelantan in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course DVT 55204 - Research Project. Sporotrichosis is one of the most common fungal infection that affects companion animals. It is a zoonotic disease that has an impact on public health. The current prevalence of sporotrichosis in Kelantan, advances in diagnostic approaches and choice of treatment, and the associated risk factors are not known. This retrospective study was conducted to determine the prevalence, common diagnostic approaches and the risk factors associated with sporotrichosis in companion animals (cats and dogs). To achieve this, data was retrospectively obtained from Veterinary Teaching Hospital, UMK and Bacteriology Lab, FPV UMK from the year 2017 to 2021. The primary data of patients including breed, age, sex, management, species, month diagnosis method and drugs administered were taken.
From 2017 to 2021, a total of 10955 patients were presented to the hospital and out of
that, 349 were tentatively diagnosed for sporotrichosis based on the presented clinical signs such as skin problem, wound, unhealing wound, dermatophytosis, fungal, mange, malassezia , rhinitis. The prevalence of total suspected sporotrichosis over the number of cases presented for five years was 3.18% and the prevalence of overall total positive sporotrichosis cases (n=140) from the suspected sporotrichosis cases (n=349) in the span of five years is 40.11%. Chi-square tests was performed to analyze the association of the data obtained. As for the result, the overall prevalence of sporotrichosis in companion animals in Kelantan from 2017 to 2021 was 40.11% and this was solely obtained from the feline species while 0% was obtained from canine species. The most statistically significant risk factors (P-value < 0.05) associated with the occurrence of sporotrichosis in companion animals are outdoor pets in a multiple animal household (n=79, p= 0.001), young adult cats (n=72, p= 0.001), felines (n= 140, p= 0.001), domestic short hair breed ( n= 79, p= 0.001). However for the statistically non-significant risk factors (P-value >0.05), sex (p= 0.142) was divided to male (n=85) and female (n=55), season (p= 0.102) was divided to rainy weather (n=58) and sunny weather (n=82). The common diagnostic method used to definitively diagnose sporotrichosis are impression smear (n=139) and itraconazole (n=103) was chosen as the choice of drug for treating ixx sporotrichosis. In conclusion, the current findings suggest that the prevalence of sporotrichosis is high in cats and the associated risk factors are the breed, management, species and age while impression smear is the routinely used diagnostic approach and itraconazole was used as the choice of treatment. Therefore, an awareness campaign is required by the authorities or veterinarians to educate the public and highlight the risk of public health given the zoonotic nature of sporotrichosis. Identification of the disease’s risk factors and clinical signs exhibited may aid in the development of the appropriate preventative strategies and to control the spread of disease.
Keywords: Companion animals, Sporotrichosis, Prevalence, Risk factors, Zoonotic