Introduction

The transmission of Borrelia burgdorferi in dogs has been documented only in Colombia in the department of Córdoba (1) and Antioquia (2). The following is a description of a patient with Lyme disease resident in Bogota, which has never left the country. The owners reported trips to Sabana Larga, Casanare (2013) and the department of Boyacá repeatedly (Figure 1).

Objectives

To demonstrate the transmission of Borrelia burgdorferi in a dog in Colombian departments still unreported.

Methods

To confirm the suspicion of hemoparasites, the SNAP 4Dx Plus (IDEXX) was performed, leading to positive result for antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi and Ehrlichia sp. The test was repeated 26 days after, giving the same result. Knowing the cross-reaction that can exist with antibodies for Leptospira (3), serology was done by microagglutination; the result was negative.

Results

By performing blood tests and getting the test results, it became clear that the patient had acute renal disease and seropositivity for Lyme disease. The SNAP® test's peptide-based technology allows the evaluation of only highly specific antibodies for Lyme disease, which helps to eliminate false positives (4). As the negative serology for Leptospira, the possibility of a cross-reaction was discarded.

Conclusions

According to the patient's clinical, therapeutic response, seropositivity in testing and discarding possible cross-reactions with other diseases, we can confirm the natural transmission of Borrelia burgdorferi in dogs in Colombia. Therefore, it is an important local epidemiological study to investigate the presence of the vector and case reports in humans and canines.