It’s been quite a while since the last post about MRSA in horses, but rest assured, it’s still out there! Not too surprisingly it’s also spreading (or at least starting to be found) in new places. A recent report in Veterinary Microbiology (Schwaber et al, 2013) describes an MRSA outbreak at a
Rabies update
ProMed Mail‘s monthly US rabies update often contains some interesting cases, and the last one is no exception.
A llama in Georgia became aggressive, started biting itself and was spitting at one of its caretakers. A spitting llama certainly doesn’t mean rabies (I have dodged enough llama spitballs to know that) but any sudden
Expensive cat bite
When I was in general practice, I remember going into an appointment and being introduced by an owner to his cat named "Big Screen TV." Upon seeing my surprise at the name, the owner explained that the medical emergency the cat had the year before cost as much as the big screen TV he wanted, so
Wash your hands…Moe’s watching!
One on the things we try to do with the blog approach to getting zoonotic disease and infectious disease information out is to put a personal spin on stories. Whether it’s new puppy issues, a rabid bat in my house, zoonotic disease issues at my kid’s daycare or something more mundane, that personal
Do you know what’s in your dog’s ‘bully stick’?
I mean that two ways.
1) Do you know what a bully stick actually is?
2) Do you know what’s in it?
A recent study headed up by Dr. Lisa Freeman, published in this month’s Canadian Veterinary Journal (Freeman et al., CVJ 2013;54:50-54), looked into this by asking people what they thought bully sticks were
Capnocytophaga and dog bites: Changing disease or more reporting?
I seem to write about this bug a lot – disproportionately for a rare cause of infection – but it just keeps getting attention. Reading the title of a recent article "Woman loses legs, fingers to rare infection from dog bite," it was an easy guess that the infection was caused by Capnocytophaga canimorsus
Rudolph inquiry in Scotland
Santa gives the reindeer a few months off every year, so inevitably they’re going to cause trouble.
A health board inquiry is under way after a young reindeer was taken into a Glasgow Children’s Hospital and allowed to interact with patients. The reindeer fawn, from a local reindeer farm, was paraded around the hospital
Sssnakes and Sssalmonella
The fact that Salmonella and reptiles go together is old news. I often get questions about testing reptiles to see if they are Salmonella carriers and I tell people not to bother since even with a negative result, I’d consider the animal to be positive. A recent study in the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife
Equine herpesvirus in Michigan
Yes, the title’s a bit misleading. Equine herpesvirus (EHV) is everywhere, since the virus circulates widely in the horse population internationally and lies dormant in the bodies of a large percentage of healthy horses. However, cases of EHV-1 neurological disease get attention because of the severity of disease and the potential for outbreaks (for reasons