China review highlights ongoing leptospirosis risk in people and dogs

A new systematic review and meta-analysis in Preventive Veterinary Medicine brings fresh attention to leptospirosis in China by examining the disease across both humans and dogs, instead of treating them as separate surveillance problems. The study included 109 studies from 29 provinces, with 111,542 human samples and 8,875 dog samples, and concludes that leptospirosis remains a substantial zoonotic burden with marked geographic and host-related heterogeneity. (sciencedirect.com)

That matters because the broader national picture can look deceptively reassuring. China has tracked leptospirosis as a notifiable disease since 1955, and several recent analyses show a long-term decline in human incidence. One 2025 analysis found incidence dropped from 0.047 per 100,000 in 2010 to 0.009 in 2018, before a slight rebound to 0.019 in 2023. Another review of national surveillance data through 2022 described the epidemiology as changing rather than disappearing, with risk patterns shifting over time and place. (idpjournal.biomedcentral.com)

The newer review adds veterinary relevance by centering dogs alongside people. Its premise is straightforward: humans and dogs often share the same environmental exposures, especially where contact with standing water, flooding, rodents, livestock environments, or free-roaming animal populations increases transmission risk. China CDC reporting from Anhui, a historically important leptospirosis region, says sporadic cases and small outbreaks still occur, and identifies climatic and environmental drivers as important contributors. That aligns with the review’s One Health framing and suggests that companion animal data may help identify local risk that national human case counts can miss. (sciencedirect.com)

Although the available abstracted material does not surface all pooled prevalence estimates and subgroup findings, it does show the scale of the evidence base and the authors’ main conclusion: leptospirosis in China is still epidemiologically relevant in both species, with meaningful variation by geography and host factors. That’s consistent with earlier work showing Leptospira circulation in other animal reservoirs in China, including rodents, which remain a key source of environmental contamination. (sciencedirect.com)

From a clinical and industry perspective, the paper lands at a time when veterinary guidance has become more assertive on leptospirosis prevention. AAHA updated its canine vaccination guidance in 2024 to classify leptospirosis vaccination as a core recommendation for dogs in North America, citing the disease’s severity, endemicity, and zoonotic potential. Separately, the ACVIM consensus statement says leptospirosis should be on the differential list for any dog evaluated for acute kidney injury, especially when hepatic dysfunction or pulmonary hemorrhage is also present. Those recommendations are not China-specific, but they reflect a broader professional shift: leptospirosis is being treated less as a niche exposure issue and more as a routine risk-management concern. (aaha.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary teams, this review reinforces three practical points. First, declining human incidence does not mean low veterinary relevance, because local ecology can sustain canine exposure even when national case counts are modest. Second, dogs can function as both patients and sentinels in a shared-risk environment, making clinic-level recognition and reporting more valuable in a One Health framework. Third, the persistent heterogeneity described in the review supports regionally tailored prevention, including vaccine uptake, rodent control, environmental risk counseling for pet parents, and stronger infection-control awareness when handling suspect cases. (sciencedirect.com)

What to watch: The next question is whether Chinese surveillance and research efforts move beyond broad prevalence summaries toward more actionable serovar mapping, dog-specific risk stratification, and integrated human-animal early warning in hotspot provinces. If that happens, this review could become a reference point for more targeted prevention policy, not just a retrospective snapshot. (sciencedirect.com)