35474 - Infectious Diseases of Companion Animals

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student acquired: - knowledge about the etiology, epidemiology, symptomatology, diagnosis and control of infectious diseases  of companion animals; - the ability to apply this knowledge in the interpretation of clinical cases; - to able to make judgments and estimates health care even if they have incomplete data; - to able to manage and communicate information to both specialists to non-specialists in the field; - to achieve a high level of operational capacity in the control of diseases in the context of multicat/dog environment.

Course contents

Course contents

The aims of this teaching course is to provide essential information on the major infectious disease of cats and dogs. The student acquires the knowledge about etiology, epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical signs, anatomo-pathological lesions, diagnosis and control of companion animals infectious diseases.

Infectious diseases of dog :
Canine parvovirus, Canine Distemper, Leptospirosis, Canine Ehrilichiosis/anaplasmosis, Canine Infectious Hepatitis

Infectious diseases of cat: Feline Panleukopenia, Feline Infectious Peritonitis, Feline Respiratory Upper Disease (Feline Herpesvirus, Feline Calicivirus, Chlamydophila felis), Feline Leukemia, Feline Immunodeficiency

Readings/Bibliography

Slides of the lectures are available to the web site Collezione AMS Campus http://campus.cib.unibo.it 

Recommended text: Greene C.E. - Infectious Disease of the Dog and the Cat, 4th  ed., Elsevier, 2012.

Teaching methods

The course comprises academic (frontal) lectures, and practical lectures. 

a.        academic (frontal): Frontal lectures carried out by slides show and watching of movies; 

b.       practical (tutorial supervised or hands on): Practical lectures carried out by groups of student with discussion of clinical cases under the supervision of a tutor (problem solving approach). Emphasis on collection and conservation of biological samples and  implementation of a protocol laboratory diagnosis will done.

Assessment methods

The aims of the evaluation at the end of the course are:

- to know the etio-pathogenesis and the epidemiology of infectious diseases of companion animals;  

- to know the clinical signs and to be able to express and discuss a differential diagnosis and to indicate the techniques of direct and indirect diagnosis with the aim to get a definitive diagnosis;

- to know the prevention measures to control the infectious diseases and to be able to apply them in practice;

In order to take the examination, the student must to enroll to the application of the integrated course Communicable Diseases and Epidemiology on the web site https://almaesami.unibo.it/almaesami/welcome.htm.

The evaluation of the student consists of an oral test. The examination of the courses included Epidemiology, Infectious diseases of farm animals and Infectious disease of companion animals, that take place at the same time, usually on the same day and, given the close integration of the evaluation moments, it is not possible support them separately.

The final grade of the course Communicable Diseases and Epidemiology consists of the synthesis of the evaluations of the different courses that compose it, including Parasitic diseases. Individual parts of the examination may be eventually overcome will not considered valid.

The evaluation of the preparation of the candidate may require additional questions. It paid particular attention to the student's ability to connect the concepts of the various parts of the course together with information derived from classes in previous years.

It is very important that the candidate knows the concepts from courses in previous years, particularly with respect to microbiology, virology and pathology general.

In the evaluation of the responses of the candidate, the Committee will pay particular attention to evaluating the acquisition of a logic-deductive method of contents.

During the examination, the use of support materials such as books, notes computing devices is prohibited.

Teaching tools

Projector, PC, movies

Office hours

See the website of Mara Battilani