Canine seroprevalence as a sentinel for emerging Lyme disease transmission in Missouri
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Lyme disease is the most frequently reported vector-borne disease of humans in the United States. However, its presence in low-incidence states, such as Missouri, remains uncertain. The purpose of this capstone project was to determine if canine seroprevalence data can be used to better understand and explain human Lyme disease transmission within Missouri. Publicly available serological data from dogs was obtained from the Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC), and this data was compared with human Lyme disease incidence data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Additional data on the distribution of Ixodes scapularis ticks was collected from the CDC’s tick collection records and a literature search. Descriptive and regression analyses were performed to determine if the percentage of seropositive dogs was predictive of human incidence rates. Data from 2023, the last year huma data is available, showed 16 confirmed human cases and 763 positive canine tests. These results show more dogs are diagnosed in Missouri each year compared to humans, even though the reporting results are not directly comparable. The canine test positivity rate from Missouri in 2023 was 0.35%, which was considerably lower than the average from fourteen high-incidence states in 2023 (>5%). However, Missouri’s canine test rates were similar to neighboring low-incidence states. A regression analysis showed a strong positive correlation between canine seroprevalence and human Lyme disease incidence (R² = 0.69, p < 0.01) in low-incidence states. This supports the validity of canine surveillance as an early warning indicator. There was no observed geographical clustering of canine positivity rates among Missouri counties and canine positivity rates did not change significantly over time, which would indicate changing transmission dynamics. A weakness of this study was that it looked at aggregated data over large areas. Targeted investigations are needed to determine if individual cases were acquired through travel or local transmission. Overall, these findings demonstrate the potential of canine surveillance as a cost-effective and readily available tool to supplement human surveillance.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.