Canine Distemper - Disease Progression

Disease Progression

The virus first appears in bronchial lymph nodes and tonsils two days after exposure. The virus then enters the blood stream on the second or third day. A first round of acute fever tends to begin around three to eight days after infection, which is often accompanied by a low white blood cell count, especially of lymphocytes, as well as low platelet count. These signs may or may not be accompanied by anorexia, a runny nose, and discharge from the eye. This first round of fever typically recedes rapidly within 96 hours, and then a second round of fever begins around the 11th or 12th day and lasts at least a week. Gastrointestinal and respiratory problems tend to follow, which may become complicated with secondary bacterial infections. Inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, otherwise known as encephalomyelitis, is either associated with this, subsequently follows, or comes completely independent of these problems. A thickening of the footpads sometimes develops, and vesicularpustular lesions on the abdomen usually develop. Neurological symptoms typically are found in the animals with thickened footpads from the virus. About half of sufferers experience meningoencephalitis.

Read more about this topic:  Canine Distemper

Famous quotes containing the words disease and/or progression:

    Perfect Scepticisme ... is a disease incurable, and a thing rather to be pitied or laughed at, then seriously opposed. For when a man is so fugitive and unsettled that he will not stand to the verdict of his own Faculties, one can no more fasten any thing upon him, than he can write in the water, or tye knots in the wind.
    Henry More (1614–1687)

    Measured by any standard known to science—by horse-power, calories, volts, mass in any shape,—the tension and vibration and volume and so-called progression of society were full a thousand times greater in 1900 than in 1800;Mthe force had doubled ten times over, and the speed, when measured by electrical standards as in telegraphy, approached infinity, and had annihilated both space and time. No law of material movement applied to it.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)