19/04/2025
The Lepto 4 vaccine is very safe and protects our dogs well, but it has been the focus of (thankfully unfounded) concern amongst some pet parents and also subject to some dreadful, and very damaging, anti-vax rhetoric.
Interest in L4 has spiked recently after a couple of vaccine companies announced they were stopping production of it's predecessor L2, and so Dogs Today Magazine decided to do a deep dive into the issue and asked me to write a piece for them.
My hope this is that my article will help put minds at rest and mean fewer dogs miss out on protection from this dreadful disease.
The edition is now free to read and the Lepto articles start on page 7; https://free2read.dogstodaymagazine.co.uk/dogstoday_367 =7
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My references, which weren't able to be included in the article are;
1)https://wsava.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WSAVA-Vaccination-guidelines-2024.pdf
2) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/leptospira-vaccination-in-dogs
3) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vaccination-of-dogs/vaccination-topics -and-failures
4) C. Taylor, D.C. Brodbelt, B. Dobson, B. Catchpole, D.G. O’Neill, K.B. Stevens,
Spatio-temporal distribution and agroecological factors associated with canine leptospirosis in Great Britain, Preventive Veterinary Medicine, Volume 193, 2021, 105407, ISSN 0167-5877, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2021.105407.
5) https://laboklin.com/en/leptospirosis-in-dogs-serovar-prevalence/
6) https://www.vetvoices.co.uk/post/leptospirosis-vaccine-a-silent-killer
7) Bergmann Esteves S, Moreira Santos C, Ferreira Salgado F, et al. Efficacy of commercially available vaccines against canine leptospirosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Vaccine. 2022;40(12):1722-1740. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.02.021
8 Updated ACVIM consensus statement on leptospirosis in dogs https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jvim.16903
9) Moore GE, Morrison J, Saito EK, Spofford N, Yang M. Breed, smaller weight, and multiple injections are associated with increased adverse event reports within three days following canine vaccine administration. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2023;261(11):1653-1659. Published 2023 Jul 14. doi:10.2460/javma.23.03.0181
10) André-Fontaine G, Triger L. MAT cross-reactions or vaccine cross-protection: retrospective study of 863 leptospirosis canine cases [published correction appears in Heliyon. 2018 Dec 17;4(12):e01027. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e01027.]. Heliyon. 2018;4(11):e00869. Published 2018 Nov 2. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00869
11) https://todaysveterinarypractice.com/infectious-disease/diagnosis-and-treatment-of-leptospirosis-in-dogs/
12) Vyn CM, Libera KC, Weese JS, Jardine CM, Berke O, Grant LE. Social and environmental risk factors for canine leptospirosis: A scoping review. Vet Rec. 2024;e4437. https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.4437
