Following the European Union marketing approval on 14/3/11 Virbac have introduced their new CaniLeish vaccine for Leishmania initially in Portugal.
This is the FIRST Leishmania vaccine to be approved for use within the EEC. It is not the same as the vaccine licensed in Brazil.

We are all aware (or should be) of the risks of Leishmania and we should already be taking the simple precautions (Keep dogs indoors during dusk and dawn and using products which protect against the Phlebotomus genus of the sandfly - Scalibor Collar, Advantix, there are probably others - or alternative protection in the form of repellents like Garlic or Citronella).

I have read the European Medicines Agency Scientific Public Assessment Report - Scientific Discussion (Click to open in a new window) and my observations are given below.

Please note that these are my personal interpretations and you must make your own decisions based on your own investigations and discussions of any issues with your veterinarian.

The vaccine is designed for uninfected dogs from 6 months on. The vaccination regime consists of 3 initial doses, 3 weeks apart, followed by annual boosters. No additional protection is claimed on those dogs that are already infected so a test should be carried out initially to see if infection is already present - if so there is no point in having the vaccine.

I was disappointed with the effectiveness gleaned by my untrained interpretation of the basic figures - the document uses probability theory to come up with a higher efficacy but the simple view is the one I prefer.

57% of vaccinated dogs exposed for 24 hours per day with no additional protection in HIGH RISK areas were infected despite the vaccine
72% of un-vaccinated dogs in HIGH RISK areas were infected

So, given 100 vaccinated dogs, 43 would not have been infected despite having no protection at all but 28 wouldn't have got infected anyway - the efficacy is therefore only somewhere between 15% and 43%.

Given that the control groups were not provided with any other protection and spent all their time outside in HIGH RISK areas I am sorry but this doesn't strike me as something that is worth the money given that you still have to take the basic precautions.

If the dogs had been provided with additional protection and not exposed for 24 hours a day the infection rate would have been significantly less and the efficacy of the vaccine as an "added protection" would also have turned out to be much, much lower than indicated.

NOTE that the trials were carried out in 3 locations (Barcelona, Naples and Ibiza) - the low incidence of infections in Ibiza led Verbac to discount the figures from there but it did lead them to conclude that the use of the vaccine should be discussed with your local vet to determine if the local incidence of Leishmania was sufficiently high to justify the use of the vaccine.