By Maureen Anderson on Posted in DogsOne of our most frequent pieces of advice on W&GB when it comes to kids is to always make sure they are supervised when they are around pets. This is important for at least two major reasons, one being avoiding potential high-risk contacts when it comes to infectious disease transmission (e.g. face-to-mouth, hand-to-bum), and the… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsA colleague recently let me know about an article in the journal Infection Ecology and Epidemiology entitled “Human wound infectious caused by Nesseria animaloris and Neisseria zoodegmatis, former CDC Group EF-4a and EF-4b" (Heydecke et al 2013). These are new bugs to me… The article outlines an effort to characterize these bacteria from people with… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsProMed-mail usually posts a monthly recap of rabies cases in the US. The most recent one (like most of them) doesn’t have anything too astounding, but it provides some good reminders. Skunk attacks baby A five-month-old baby that was outside in a car seat was bitten in the face several times by a skunk. The… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsDogs have had some bad PR lately because of some high-profile bites and bite infections in people. So, in the spirit of fairness, I’ll write about a dog as a victim of an attack… from a cat. A paper in a recent edition of Veterinary Dermatology (Banovic et al 2013) describes necrotizing cellulitis in a… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsIt’s maybe a sad statement that reading about someone whose diseased toes were gnawed off by their dog doesn’t shock me anymore. It’s not an everyday event but it’s far from rare. An Indiana man learned about this the hard way when he woke up thinking his dog was licking his toes, when in fact,… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsI’ve been bitten lots of times, some on the job (including the last dog I saw when I was in general practice) and some off (including a dog down the road a couple of years ago). Fortunately, I haven’t suffered any serious consequences. That’s what happens most of the time. However, bad things can and do… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsIt’s not hard to find news articles about animal bites. That’s because they are very common, sometimes incite controversy (e.g. to euthanize the offending animal or not) and occasionally cause severe injury or death. Here’s a sampling of some recent reports: The University of Arizona Medical Center is reporting a steady increase in dog bites, with… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsProMed 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 change… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsWhen 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… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsI 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. That’s the… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsI write a lot about animal bites, and for good reason since they are common and can be very severe. Usually, it’s dog bites. Sometimes it’s cat bites, or more rarely injuries from birds or other critters. Monkey bites not so much, but they happen. I had an email question about rabies exposure from a… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsPublic health personnel in Chapin, Connecticut (USA) are trying to find a woman bitten by a rabid cat. The woman was driving down South Brear Hill Road when she came across a cat. She picked the cat up from the road and told someone else who was there that the cat bit her. She then… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsI don’t know whether it’s because a) there are more rabid beavers these days, b) rabid beavers have always been around in these numbers but they have recently acquired a taste for human flesh, or c) it’s just a fluke, but another rabid beaver was recently reported in the US. The latest incident involved a beaver… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsNo, I’m not referring to pets lacking in intelligence (my dog Meg leads that category). Rather, I’m talking about questionable decisions by pet owners. Here are a few bewildering stories: The Indian River Reptile Zoo near Peterborough, Ontario, rushed some of their stock of snake anti-venom to Brantford General Hospital (about three hours away) to… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsIt might just be my perception, but it seems like there are a lot more reports of nasty dog bite infections in the news lately, particularly infections caused by the bacterium Capnocytophaga canimorsus. I don’t know whether that’s because they are becoming more common, more commonly diagnosed (since the bug is hard to identify), more… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsI’ve had a run on questions about survival of rabies virus outside the body. The topic comes up periodically with respect to touching roadkill or veterinary clinic personnel working with animals that have been attacked by an unknown animal. The case of three people who developed rabies after taking care of a sheep that had… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsIsrael’s Health Ministry is recommending rabies vaccination for people traveling to India.This seems to be mainly in response to the recent high-profile case of an English woman who died of rabies acquired from a dog in India. While it was high-profile, that certainly wasn’t the only travel-associated rabies infection in the past year. Rabies exposure… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsAn inquest into the dog-bite-associated death of Gary Dickinson, age 57, is underway in the UK. When people think about deaths from dog bites, they usually think about death from severe trauma, especially in kids. However, as I’ve mentioned repeatedly, minor bites can also pose major risks. Mr. Dickinson died in February, only three days… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsA 50-year-old UK woman, the first of two recent travel-associated rabies cases in the UK, has unfortunately but not surprisingly succumbed to the infection. The woman was bitten by a puppy while traveling in India. Given the widespread nature of rabies in dogs in India and the large number of human rabies deaths associated with… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsAn Albany, Georgia woman is fortunately recovering from necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating disease) that developed after a cat bite. The cat presumably wasn’t the source of the bacterium that caused the disease, but it was the source of the wound that let the bacterium (usually Group A Streptococcus sp) get into her body in the… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsIdentification of the strain of rabies in the first person in Toronto to be diagnosed with rabies in the past 81 years has essentially confirmed that the infection was acquired abroad. Toronto Public Health has indicated that the strain obtained from the infected man is one known to circulate in dogs in the Dominican Republic,… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in RabiesLast summer, I wrote about rabies in person from New Jersey, and now the full report about the case is available. The unfortunate victim was a 73-year-old Haitian women. She initially went to an emergency room with a complaint of right shoulder pain, chest pain, headaches and high blood pressure. Difficulty swallowing was also noted when… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsIt seems like pet bite articles come in waves, with a recent cluster showing the variable quality in advice that’s available. Often, they are holiday "filler" articles that provide some basic useful information but overall are of limited use or even harmful based on their very superficial approach. They often mention rabies, get a quick… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsOne problem with keeping uncommon animal species as pets is that we don’t know much about them from an infectious disease standpoint. Some species end up being pretty low risk while others end up causing unexpected infectious disease challenges. A Texas family found this out the hard way, after their 16-year-old daughter got sick after… Continue Reading
