Canine Parainfluenza: Symptoms and Treatment
📝 Summary
Canine parainfluenza is a contagious viral respiratory disease spread by aerosols from infected dogs, with fever, mucoid nasal discharge, sneezing, and a cough. Supportive care — serum therapy, antivirals, antibiotics against secondary infection, and careful fluids — carries most dogs through, though mortality can reach about 60%.
1 Transmission
The dog is the main source. Nasal and throat secretions hold large amounts of parainfluenza virus, shed by coughing and sneezing; susceptible dogs inhale the contaminated droplets and become infected.
2 Symptoms
Early signs are low spirits, fever of 40–41°C, fast breathing and heartbeat, little or no eating, sneezing, a dry nose, and serous or mucoid nasal discharge. The conjunctiva redden and tear; there is an intermittent cough and overall weakness with a preference to lie down. The course lasts over a week, with mortality around 60%.
3 Treatment
Use serum therapy, antivirals, and anti-secondary-infection treatment. (1) Serum: pentavalent hyperimmune serum 2 ml/kg with an immune booster — transfer factor 30,000–60,000 units or thymopeptide 5 mg, intramuscularly once daily for 3 days. (2) Antiviral/anti-infection: ribavirin 20–30 mg/kg, cefazolin or cefuroxime 50–100 mg/kg, and shuanghuanglian or chanhuoning 1 ml/kg, IM or IV; or amikacin plus ribavirin IM once daily for 4–5 days. Orally, cephalexin 10 mg/kg or roxithromycin 5 mg/kg twice daily for a week. (3) Symptomatic: aminophylline 1–2 ml IM/IV for breathing difficulty; for harsh cough, carbetapentane or compound licorice tablets; for heart failure, cedilanid 0.05 mg/kg IV. (4) Fluids: for prolonged high fever and anorexia, give fluids carefully — 5% glucose and saline at a 2:1 ratio, 60 ml/kg, never too much or too fast, to avoid iatrogenic pulmonary edema; for severe cases, stabilize breathing and heart rhythm first. (5) TCM: isatis-root granules or a cold-relief formula in drinking water twice daily.
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