The emerging disease occurrence of pet animals in Bangladesh

Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify the current status of emerging diseases of pet animals in Bangladesh and to estimate the percentage of disease occurrence in the pet animals. Materials and methods: A 2-month potential study was conducted to estimate the percentage (%) of disease occurrence and current status of emerging diseases of pet animals in Bangladesh. A total of 550 animals were examined and 358 data were collected from the disease registered book of the Central Veterinary Hospital (CVH), Dhaka and SA Quaderi Teaching Veterinary Hospital, Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (CVASU), Bangladesh during June and September, 2014. The data were analysed, and the results on the newly emerging diseases were expressed as percentage (%). Results: Among the most general pet animals in Bangladesh (dog, cat, rabbit), the mostly occured diseases were scabies (23.07%), feline ascariasis (37.14%) and rabbit mange (34.61%), while the less frequent diseases were canine parvovirus enteritis (2.19%), cat scratch disease (5.71%) and overgrown teeth (7.69%). Conclusion: The study provides basic information about the current status and the percentage (%) of disease occurrence considering the emerging diseases of pet animals in Bangladesh.


INTRODUCTION
Pet animals are usually kept for person's enjoyment, companionship and protection rather than sports animals, livestock, and laboratory animals, which are kept primarily for performance, agricultural value, & research.Pets are well-known for their attractiveness and loyal, playful behaviors.Dogs and cats are the most popular pets but people also keep house rabbits, rodents, hamsters, fancy rats, and guinea pigs; avian pets like parakeets, parrots; aquatic pets-tropical fish, frogs; and arthropod pets-tarantulas, crabs.According to this book-Between pets and people: the importance of animal companionship said that, Pets play an important role in our daily life than ever before.This book also explores the benefits of keeping a pet and analyses the correlation between human and pets (Beck and Katcher, 1996).
Diseases and infections those are naturally transmitted between vertebrae animals and man are called zoonoses.'(WHO/FAO expert committee on zoonoses, 1959) Zoonotic diseases may be categorised as emerging, & reemerging.When the incidence of a disease has increased in a defined time period or location is called emerging or re-emerging infectious disease.If the disease was novel i.e. unknown in the location before, this is an emerging disease.(Samad, 2013) on the other hand re-emerging disease means the disease had been present at the location in the past and was considered exterminated or controlled.The people who have a close contact with animals (veterinarians & massacre workers) are mostly vulnerable to contaminated with the emerging or reemerging zoonotic diseases.Because animal health is inherently linked to human health.(Haas, 1987).
Pet animals have major psychological value to our modern urbanised society.Dogs, cats, and rabbits are the most common domestic pets.However, a human may be directly or indirectly infected by them with various pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, rickettsial, parasites, and fungi (Plaut et al., 1996;Tan, 1997;Chomel, 2014).
Moreover, all types of these disease occurrences ensued worldwide including Bangladesh.The results on the percentage (%) of disease occurrence and current status of emerging diseases of pet animals in Bangladesh are analysed from the published literature and presented in this study.Numerous factors in our society are responsible for Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) outbreak, these includes public health, medicine, environmental science, animal health, food safety, and economics.(Mackey et al., 2014) According to literature, there are about 1415 human pathogens of which 61% are zoonotic and nearly half of all human pathogens can be classified as emerging, of which 75% of emerging infectious diseases are caused by zoonotic pathogens.(Newman et al., 2005;Hossain and Kayesh, 2014).
So, in this study, the objectives were to find out the current status of emerging diseases of pet animals in Bangladesh and also see the percentage (%) of disease occurrence.But this done within a short period of time because of study period limitation but the topics is very crucial and important, so it needs further long-term study.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was conducted to determine the percentage (%) of disease occurrence and current status of emerging diseases of pet animals in the central veterinary hospital (CVH), Dhaka and SA Quaderi Teaching Veterinary Hospital, CVASU, Chittagong, Bangladesh in June 2014 and September 2014 respectively.In this period a total number of 550 animals were examined.To perform this work 358 data were collected from the disease registered book of the central veterinary hospital, Dhaka and SA Quaderi Teaching Veterinary Hospital, CVASU, Bangladesh.Various types of information regarding the objectives of this study were determined by interviewing the owners and data collected from the record book.
All the sick animals brought for treatment to CVH and SA Quaderi Teaching Veterinary Hospital (CVASU) was first registered in the patient registered book of respective institutes.It was also noted that the majority of owners of animals were illiterate, followed by some with a primary level of education.For this study, it was difficult to collect reliable data.The description of each registered animal and owner's complaint were recorded.In addition to the registered patients of the CVH and SA Quaderi Teaching Veterinary Hospital, CVASU, Bangladesh cases treated at the different owner's houses and farms were also recorded.The age of each sick animal was determined by asking the owners and or by dentitions.A total of 550 pet animals were available during the study period and the general clinical examination was conducted on the basis of disease history and owners complaint.Materials considered significant for diagnostic purposes were collected and examined at the both hospitals.The final diagnosis was made on the basis of the interpretation of clinical, epidemiological and laboratory findings.358 diseased animals' data were collected and it was tabulated in different tables for further analysis of the study.Data obtained were entered into Microsoft excel and the results were expressed in percentage (%).
The highest (%) of disease occurrence in case of rabbit was rabbit mange (34.61%) while the lowest (%) of disease occurrence was over grown teeth (7.69%), recorded during June and September, 2014 at CVH, Dhaka & SA Quaderi Teaching Veterinary Hospital, CVASU, Bangladesh, respectively (Table 5 and 6).

DISCUSSION
In the urbanised countries pet animals often live, eat, and sleep in close proximity to humans and may be the same infectious agents are responsible for causing diseases.As a result usually dogs, cats and rabbits become a source of human infection by various zoonotic pathogens.Zoonotic emerging pathogens are important for understanding the epidemiology and control of many human diseases.(Haas, 1987 ) scabies also was found as the highest percentages (%) of disease occurrence (23.07%) in our study.The incidence of scabies in the children younger than 5-year was 952/1000 per year in the urban slum of Bangladesh, which means that almost all children experienced at least one infestation per year (Stanton et al., 1987).One of the most important zoonotic arthropod in Bangladesh is scabies (Hossain and Kayesh, 2014).24 scabies affected dogs were found in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, during 2010.(Ali et al., 2011).
Canine salmonellosis is one of the most common gastrointestinal zoonoses with broad economic and public health ramifications, caused by the salmonella bacterium.Main clinical signs are disorders, including gastroenteritis, spontaneous abortions, and septicemia.In our study during September 2014, canine salmonellosis had the highest percentages (%) of disease occurrence (20.53%), which coincides with the previous study of (Hossain and Kayesh, 2014).25 male and 30 female dogs were found with Salmonellosis during their study.
Infectious canine hepatitis is a worldwide, contagious disease of dogs caused by canine adenovirus type-1 (cav-1).Signs vary from a slight fever to death.The death rate ranges from 10%-30% and is usually highest in very young dogs (Hossain and Kayesh, 2014).In our study disease occurrence (%) was 2.67.Beside that One of the most common intestinal parasites of the cat is ascariasis.138 cases of ascariasis were found during 2005-2009 in Bangladesh (Parvin et al., 2010).
Cat-scratch disease (CSD) is a newly emerging zoonotic disease caused by the bacterium Bartonella henselae, for this bacterium cats are the main reservoir (Chomel et al., 2004).The higher rate of Bartonella infection was found in south central Asia (Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan, and      In India, the incidence of rabbit mange is very high as well as in Bangladesh too because of hot and humid climate.(Jana et al., 2004) .In our study, in the case of rabbit mange, (%) of disease occurrence (34.61%) was higher than other diseases.
Rabbit teeth keep growing throughout the rabbit's whole life.So that teeth problem is the main sign and may, therefore, affect the rabbit health which is difficult to recover.(Van Caelenberg et al., 2008) The most common congenital disease in rabbits is malocclusion and leads to overgrowth of incisors, premolars, and molars, with subsequent difficulty in eating and drinking (Meredith, 2007).In this study over grown teeth (7.69%) found as a newly emerging disease in Bangladesh.
Any diseases or agents those are totally or partially new can trigger emerging and re-emerging infection.Several factors have led to the emergence of these infections, including animal movement, human demographics& behavior, the industrialisation of food production, globalisation, international travel and commerce, land use, microbial alteration, and changes and breakdown in public health actions.(Fèvre et al., 2006)

CONCLUSION
The study provides basic information about the current status and the (%) of disease occurrence of the Emerging diseases of pet animals in Bangladesh.This may be of immense value to researchers for future study.The most common diseases found in pet animals were scabies, canine salmonellosis, ascariasis, infectious canine hepatitis, cat-scratch disease, rabbit mange, over grown teeth etc. Veterinarian and researcher should make concern about these newly emerging diseases.During our study, we saw most of the pet owners were unfamiliar with these diseases and also not well-known about pet care.Raising awareness among the owners about pet care by the proper housing, feeding, and prevention of contamination of pet animals are necessary.However, further studies are required for more investigation.

Table 6 :
Percentages (%) of disease occurrence of rabbit in September 2014 (SA Quaderi Teaching Veterinary Hospital, CVASU, (Nelson et al., 2016;Saisongkorh et al., 2009)Veterinary Hospital, CVASU, Bangladesh) Nepal) also found in the USA in recent years(Nelson et al., 2016;Saisongkorh et al., 2009)symptoms of swelling of the lymph nodes nearest to the bitten or scratched site, fever, headache, and a general malaise were reported by the owner.