Prevalence and risk factors associated with clinical cases of pet animals in Dhaka city, Bangladesh

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of most common clinical cases of dog, cat and rabbit reported at MM Hossain’s Pet Clinic, Dhaka, Bangladesh. One thousand and two hundred (n=1200) clinical cases were recorded during the period from March 2020 to July 2022. Among them, dog, cat, and rabbit covered 21%, 65.5% and 12.5% cases, respectively. Parasitic disease was the highest prevalent case (25%) in dogs followed by gastritis (11.51%), wound (10.71%), dermatitis (7.54%), conjunctivitis (6.75%), and kennel cough (5.16%) (p<0.001). Likewise, parasitic disease followed by wound, viral disease, and diarrhea were the more prevalent clinical cases in cats (23.31%, 18.05%, 6.77%, and 5.64%, respectively) (p<0.001). In case of rabbit, traumatic injuries and fracture was the highest reported case (16.67%) followed by parasitic infestation, diarrhea, and dermatitis (13.33%, 13.33%, and 12.00%, respectively) (p<0.001). Clinical cases were more prevalent in male dogs than female dogs (56.75% vs 43.25%) (p<0.05), and dogs more than 6 months of age had more reported clinical cases compared to 1-6 months of aged dogs (65.08% vs 34.92%) (p<0.05). Local breed of cats showed higher prevalence of clinical cases than that of cross breed (66.54% vs 33.46%), male cats had higher prevalence compared to female cats (59.40% vs 40.60%), and cats at the age of 1-6 months represented higher prevalence than those more than 6 months of age (62.16% vs 37.84%) (p<0.05). Male rabbits represented as higher reported clinical cases than female rabbits (72.67% vs 27.33%) (p<0.05). Overall, Parasitic infection/infestation was the prominent reported clinical cases in pet dogs, cats, and rabbits. Proper prevention and therapeutic management should be carrying out to reduce the prevalence of parasitic diseases of pets.