There’s prudence and then there’s "let’s kill it so we don’t have to think about it."

The Spanish response to Ebola in a nursing assistant is a demonstration of the latter. Health Officials in Spain have obtained a court order to "euthanize and incinerate" the dog owned by a nursing assistant who was infected with Ebola virus while caring for a Spanish priest who acquired the infection in Sierra Leone. The case has received a lot of attention, as the first case of Ebola from this outbreak that was acquired outside of Africa.

There’s obviously cause for concern and prudence, and the woman’s husband is logically in quarantine. However, euthanasia of the dog seems like overkill. Yes, we have to be careful. But we don’t need to overreact.

The odds of this dog being infected are very, very slim. Even if the dog was infected, there is no evidence that dogs are a source of infection. The concern about dogs has been around dogs eating carcasses of other animals that have died of Ebola virus infection, and direct contact with people with active disease. In one study in a village in Gabon during an Ebola outbreak, a large percentage of dogs had antibodies against the virus, indicating exposure (Allela et al, Emerging Infectious Diseases 2005). But, exposure doesn’t mean the dogs were ever able to transmit the virus, and eating a body full of Ebola virus is very different from living in the house with one person in the early stage of infection.

I’m not saying transmission from a dog in some form or another is impossible, or that no precautions are required for pets that have been in contact with an infected person. In some ways, it’s good to see animals considered in this scenario. However, why not take the opportunity to quarantine and test the dog to see if it was infected? That would be better for the dog, for its owner, and for the next time the situation occurs. You can’t answer all the questions with one dog, but you can start to gather information. Euthanasia is the easy knee-jerk approach that removes all risk, but there are ways to house and monitor a dog for a few weeks with no contact. Since Ebola virus is spread by direct contact with infectious body fluids, it’s containable with good facilities and appropriate precautions. To me, that would have been a better approach from many aspects.