By Scott Weese on Posted in Parasites,Rabies1) Pick up baby raccoons and take them away Rarely does this end well. It’s illegal in many areas (including Ontario). Raccoons don’t do well long-term in households for various reasons (their curious and destructive nature being a big one). And, they are potential sources of a number of zoonotic diseases (rabies being a big one but not… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Cats,Dogs,Other animals,Rabies,VaccinationThis month, Public Health Ontario released a new Rabies Guidance Document for Healthcare Providers. It’s nothing particularly new but a good review of the recommended response to rabies exposure from various animal species, something that’s unfortunately often messed up or made more complicated than necessary. It includes some nice flowcharts, such as the one below. The full… Continue Reading
By Maureen Anderson on Posted in RabiesIt has been just over 1 year since the discovery of the first rabid raccoon in Ontario in over a decade, and the first rabid wildlife in the Hamilton area in over two decades. Since then well over 4500 abnormal or “found dead” wildlife have been tested, and 253 animals carrying raccoon-variant rabies have been… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,ParasitesThe US Geological Service isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think about publishers of zoonotic disease information (but what do I know?). If you’re looking for some holiday reading, the USGS has published a comprehensive overview of Baylisascaris larva migrans, a serious disease caused by Baylisascaris procyonis, the raccoon roundworm. This parasite… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in RabiesThe latest edition of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports describes a case of rabies in a Missouri man. Rabies is rare in people in the US, but it remains an ever-present risk because the virus circulates in various wildlife species. (This case seems to have been from 2014, but they missed some proofreading since… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in MRSA/MRSP,Parasites,Salmonella,ToxoplasmosisPresentations from the 2015 Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses (CPHAZ) Symposium are now on YouTube on the Worms & Germs Blog channel. There is a wide range of talks, including topics such as West Nile virus, Lyme disease, salmonellosis, MRSA, Toxoplasma and various other zoonotic diseases.… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsThis tiny parasite continues to cause a stir around Ontario. While infections are (apparently) still rare, it’s becoming clear that this nasty worm has somehow stealthily established itself in the province. That presumably means it’s either also in neighbouring provinces and states, or heading there. Echinococcus multilocularis is a small tapeworm that can cause severe disease. Canids… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in ParasitesI had a question the other day about roundworms in feral cats. Specifically, how do you deworm a group of cats that you don’t handle and may not be able to catch? There are a few possible approaches, from trapping and treating (oral or topical) to trying to get a dewormer into them via food.… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in RabiesIt’s that time of year. No, not for snow (although it is snowing here at the moment). It’s time for the annual US rabies surveillance report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Dyer et al. Rabies surveillance in the United States during 2013). The highlights… Over 5800 rabid animals were identified in… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsA Brockton, MA dog was euthanized after being bitten by a rabid skunk, because of a combination of the skunk’s rabies diagnosis, a relatively minor lapse in the dog’s vaccinations, and regulatory inflexibility. The ten-year-old Schnauzer cross was bitten in its own yard, and the skunk was subsequently caught, tested and diagnosed as rabid. Clearly,… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsPlague… it’s a term that typically conjures up images of the devastating "Black Death", the pandemic that killed 75-200 million people in Europe back in the 14th century. Yet, it’s not just a historical disease. Plague is still present in a variety of small mammals in different regions worldwide (see map), including parts of the… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in RabiesA reader recently posed a question about the potential risk of rabies virus exposure from running over a rabid animal. I get the "can I get rabies from touching roadkill?" question regularly, but this person had a different concern. “The other day I accidentally plowed right over an already-dead animal in the road. My air… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in RabiesA recent report about a rabid raccoon in New Brunswick highlights a few different issues regarding rabies exposure, and the marked differences in application and interpretation of various guidelines. The incident occurred in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, where a family came home "to find their 2 dogs excitedly circling around something in the yard. The… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsLet’s put this one in the "smart people doing stupid things" file. Some well-intentioned people at Washington University in St. Louis thought they’d help relieve stress during exam time by bringing in a petting zoo – that unfortunately included "Boo Boo" the biting bear. As you can likely guess, problems ensued. 18 students sustained skin-breaking… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in ParasitesAn article by Dr. Ann Britton of British Columbia’s Animal Health Centre (AHC) on the blog site healthywildlife.ca is another reminder of the perils of raccoon poop. Over a 2 year period, 17 raccoons were submitted to the AHC for necropsy, and 12 (71%) of them were infected with Baylisascaris procyonis, the raccoon roundworm. The… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsOver the past few years, I’ve written a lot of posts on this blog. Hopefully the odd one’s been interesting and/or informative, and in the spirit of recycling (not laziness!) I’m going to re-post some that I thought were memorable or of particular interest. The first one is actually the second post ever on this site… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsThese days, there’s more and more doom-and-gloom information about multidrug-resistant bacteria. They’re in our hospitals, medical tourists, people on the street, our pets, our food, and pretty much anywhere else you can think of. We can now add crow poop to the list too. It’s almost to be expected, really. We know that birds can… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsIt’s that time of year again… time for the US annual rabies surveillance report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Dyer et al 2013). Some highlights: There were 6162 cases of rabies diagnosed in animals in 2012. (This is a 2.1% increase from 2011, but I don’t put much stock into changes… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsThe word "ironic” gets used a lot, often incorrectly. Alanis Morrissette’s hit song “Ironic” is a great example of this since she (ironically?) describes situations that aren’t really ironic, they just suck (i.e. winning the lottery and dying the next day isn’t ironic, it’s just bad luck). Anyway, irony doesn’t have much to do 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 CatsI grew up with cats, and they were all indoor/outdoor. I never really thought about it since that was just the way things were done. Yet, as much as he’d like to convince us otherwise, our current cat Finnegan is an indoor cat. There are a lot of reasons for this. One reason for keeping… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsThis story’s a couple of weeks old, but Sonoma County (California) residents have been warned about an outbreak of salmonellosis in songbirds. Outbreaks of salmonellosis occur occasionally in songbirds such as finches, and can result is lots of sick and dead birds. There are also risks to other species, including cats and people. Why cats?… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsA year or two ago, I received an email from Dr. Chelsea Himsworth, who was doing some interesting work looking at different bacteria found in rats in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This is an impoverished urban neighbourhood with lots of homeless people, IV drug users and HIV-infected individuals… and lots of rats. Dr. Himsworth, a veterinary pathologist working… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsEarlier this year, a troop of Boy Scouts in the US beat off a rabid beaver that was attacking their leader (I wonder if there’s a badge for that). Boy Scouts and infectious diseases are in the news again, but not with as happy a story. In the recent incident reported on ProMED, ten Boy… Continue Reading
