Prevalence, hematology and serum biochemistry in stray dogs naturally infected by Hepatozoon canis in São Paulo

The clinical signs observed in H. canis-infected dogs in Brazil were anorexia, pale mucous membranes, weight loss, diarrhoea, gait abnormalities, fever, polyuria and polydipsia. The laboratory findings were anemia, leucocytosis with neutrophilia, lymphopenia, monocytosis, and elevated alkaline phosphatase (Gondim et al., 1998; Paludo et al., 2003; Aguiar et al., 2004). All the animals in these studies had concurrent diseases and the findings could not be exclusively attributed to H. canis. The few studies on H. canis infection in Brazil show the lack of information about the epidemiology, pathogenicity and genetic characterization of H. canis in this country.