AN UNEXPLAINED DISEASE is estimated to have killed dozens of dogs in Norway in recent days and Norwegian authorities have been unable to detect the cause. 

The Norwegian Food Safety Authority said it had been informed of another six cases of dogs falling ill, with two them already dead, all with the same symptoms of vomiting and bloody diarrhea.

The disease seemed “very serious for a dog”, agency spokesman Ole-Herman Tronerud told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. They do not know yet whether the disease is contagious or a series of individual cases.

The majority of cases have been reported in and around the capital Oslo, but also in Bergen, Trondheim and the Nordland municipality.

Two unspecified bacteria have been detected in autopsies, but the Norwegian Veterinary Institute said it was unable to clarify whether they were the cause of the outbreak. 

“To have healthy and great Norwegian dogs die so quickly is naturally serious. It’s a very special situation I haven’t been involved in before,” the institute’s emergency and safety director, Jorun Jarp, said last Friday. 

In Sweden, the National Veterinary Institute said it had been swamped with questions from dog owners concerned over the spread of the disease across the border.

The institute said it currently had no information “to show that it is an infectious outbreak or that it would pose a risk to dogs in Sweden”.