DOMCA is carrying out FITOPET innovative project to develop functional additives for dog and pets to fight against Leishmania and other diseases associated to pets.
The increasing demand for functional food products with natural ingredients in the pet food market to improve pet health and welfare has made it necessary to further research the properties of the various active substances present in plant extracts.
On the other hand, increased pet tenure has also increased the risk of zoonoses. Therefore, it is vitally important to maintain a healthy state of pets, not only for responsible tenure, but also for public health reasons. Climate change has also favored the displacement of vectors transmitting certain diseases, such as Leishmania, whose main reservoir is the dog to those areas in which there was not incidence previously.
As a consequence, a great number of products are appearing on the market that claim to improve animal health without any scientific support, since they extrapolate their functional properties from those obtained in humans to dog (being the physiology very different).
FITOPET aims to develop a range of phytogenic-based formulations with scientifically proven functional properties to increase welfare and health of pets, through demonstrated antiparasitic, immunomodulatory and gut balance improvement activity, based on in vitro and in vivo tests carried out by researchers from DMC Research Center SLU and renowned public research organizations, such as the Institute of Biomedicine and Parasitology “López-Neyra” (CSIC) and the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Granada.
The project started in July 2021 and will finish on June 2023. The total budget is 265.951,00€. It is cofinanced by the Spanish Industrial Centre for Technical Development (CDTI) with 226.058,35 € of a partially refundable grant co-funded by the the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).
