CLEVELAND, Ohio — A $10 monthly pill could have saved a shelter dog’s life.
Dog rescue volunteers brought Kramer, a friendly Labrador retriever mixed breed, from Morrow County to Cleveland to increase his chances of finding a permanent home. Then the volunteers learned Kramer had an advanced case of heartworm, a potentially fatal mosquito-borne disease.
A vet advised that Kramer would not survive treatment, which includes harsh drugs administered over three months. He was put to sleep earlier this year.
“It’s still very upsetting,” said Diane Furiga, a trustee with the Lake Erie Labrador Retriever Rescue, the all-volunteer organization that brought Kramer to Cleveland.
Nationally, the heartworm infection rate in dogs has risen each of the past five years and is now up 20% from 2013 levels, according to the Companion Animal Parasite Council, a nonprofit that raises awareness of parasite-borne diseases affecting pets. It is based in Tennessee.
Cleveland ranked fourth in the nation on a Top 10 Cities Monthly Heartworm Report for September 2019. The list, compiled by the parasite council, ranks U.S. cities with the highest percentage increase in heartworm-positive tests for dogs and cats.
Heartworm activity in Ohio is expected to stay even with last year, and lower than average in Cuyahoga, Summit and Medina counties, according to the parasite council’s 30-day heartworm forecast. The forecast also shows that infection risk is high in some states bordering Ohio, including Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.
So far this year, there have been about 2,000 positive heartworm tests out of more than 425,000 pets tested in the state, according to the parasite council.
In 2018, Cuyahoga County saw 270 positive cases out of 42,656 pets tested; that same year, Summit County had 132 positive tests out of 27,504 pets tested, the council reported on its website.
This data was collected from two large veterinary labs and is meant to represent heartworm activity, not the total number of positive tests, the parasite council stated.
“It’s a big problem,” Dr. Amy Wolfgang, shelter vet at the Lake Humane Society and Adoption Center in Mentor, said about the heartworm situation. “It’s more of a problem than people realize.”
Heartworm-positive dogs place a burden on small, grass-roots dog rescue groups, who have to stretch budgets to cover treatment. Shelters and rescue organizations pay between $100 to $1,200 to treat a heartworm-positive dog. Costs are lower for shelters that have a veterinarian on staff.
While being treated, heartworm-positive dogs take up space with foster families or shelter cages, limiting organizations’ ability to help other pets. Rescue groups pay for a heartworm-positive dog’s care while it is with a foster family.
Adding to the problem are dog owners who view heartworm warnings and preventative medicine as a conspiracy by vets and pharmaceutical companies to make money.
Vets recommend regular tests, even for dogs who are given a monthly preventative medication, because it might have been given late or a dose skipped, said vet Dr. Amy Wolfgang, shelter vet at the Lake Humane Society and Adoption Center in Mentor.
“Nothing is 100% effective,” Wolfgang said. She pointed out that heartworm prevention medicine — which comes in injectable, oral and topical forms — is much cheaper than having to treat the disease.
Some low-income pet owners can’t afford heartworm preventative medicine for their pets, said Sharon Harvey, president and CEO of the Cleveland Animal Protective League. The Cleveland APL has treated 19 heartworm-positive dogs this year.
“We’ve got incidents of heartworm right here in our back yard,” Harvey said.
How heartworm starts, spreads
Heartworm spreads when a mosquito bites an infected animal, then bites another animal and injects it with heartworm larvae. The larvae travel to the heart, grow to adulthood and breed, causing permanent heart damage, according to the American Heartworm Society. Heartworms mature into adults in about six months; they can live for five to seven years in dogs, and up to two to three years in cats.
Heartworm cannot spread directly from pet to pet. Humans can get heartworm, but not from their dogs.
Heartworm migrates north
Ohio experienced an influx of heartworm-positive pets after Hurricane Katrina. After the 2005 natural disaster, hundreds of ownerless dogs from New Orleans were taken in by shelters in northern states, said Greg Willey, executive director of the Friendship Animal Protective League, an Elyria animal shelter.
Heartworm is more prevalent in the warm southern states, so the influx of dogs created a heartworm explosion in Northeast Ohio. Since then, the number of heartworm-positive dogs has stabilized, Willey said.
Now, most Northeast Ohio animal shelters test dogs on intake, so the disease is caught at an earlier stage, Willey said. The Friendship Animal Protective League has treated 25 dogs this year for heartworm, and took in another 45 dogs that other rescue groups had already treated for the disease. Friendship shelters about 2,000 dogs annually.
Occasionally the Lake Humane Society and Adoption Center in Mentor holds fundraisers to cover the cost of treating sick dogs, said shelter vet Wolfgang. This year, the Lake humane society treated three dogs with heartworm, out of the 1,438 it has sheltered.
The Lake Erie Labrador Retriever Rescue’s Furgia wishes she could stress to dog owners the importance of protecting pets safe from heartworm.
“One infected mosquito can destroy a dog’s life,” she said.
Concerns about EEE
Another mosquito-borne disease, Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), is causing concern in Northeast Ohio.
EEE is one of the deadliest mosquito-borne diseases in the United States, and survivors are often left with mental and physical disabilities. The EEE virus causes brain infections in humans, but only a few cases are reported in the United States each year.
The EEE virus spreads when a mosquito bites an infected bird and transmits the disease to a horse or human. Horses cannot spread EEE to humans.
While there have been no human cases of EEE reported in Ohio, three cases of EEE in horses have been reported in northeast Ohio, according to the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Lake County health officials recently urged residents to get rid of stagnant water where mosquitoes breed.
Neighboring Michigan is experiencing an outbreak of EEE, with 10 confirmed cases of EEE in humans and in 39 animals as of Oct. 8, according to the Detroit Free Press.