I’ve been slow to write about this (and other things lately… busy/lazy) but a rabid feral cat found in the vicinity of Disney’s Epcot Center in Orlando, FL has attracted a lot of attention. The Department of Health in Orange County has issued a 60 day alert for a two mile radius around where the
New antimicrobial resistance challenges continue to emerge. In the veterinary field (especially in small animals), we have the advantage of seeing what’s happening in human medicine first, since that’s often an early warning system for what we’re going to encounter. We’ve seen a variety of resistant bacteria first became a problem in people, and then
Part of me thinks this is interesting and part of me wonders why it’s noteworthy. Let’s go with the first thought and consider the interesting aspects of a presentation at the recent ASM Microbe 2019 Conference, “79 cases of pet-associated Pasteurella multocida infections in a 30-month period with reports of novel modes of
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, has issued a spotlight report: Handle with Care: Preserving Antibiotics Now and Into the Future.
There’s nothing too surprising in it, which in a lot of ways is the point. Addressing antimicrobial use and resistance isn’t rocket science, it’s application of a lot of basic, common
Back in 2008, we reported an association between feeding raw diets to dogs and shedding of cephalosporin-resistant bacteria in dogs (that makes me feel old… one of many things that does these days, I guess). It didn’t get too much attention at the time, since the main focus of the study was on Salmonella,
The latest issue of Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice includes a number of chapters on infectious diseases that have been making regular appearances on this blog, including rabies, influenza, brucellosis, Lyme disease, and more, as well as chapters on certain feline-specific infectious diseases. Check out the full table of contents and summaries here.
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The University of Guelph’s Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses (CPHAZ) 2018 Annual Report has been released. Click here to access it: 2018 CPHAZ Annual Report
A recent presentation at ECCMID (European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases) in Amsterdam described a series of linezolid-resistant enterococci in dogs and cats in the UK. I’m only able to get information from media reports, so details are limited (and potentially lost in translation); however, it’s an interesting story. It’s
I keep saying spring is approaching and I keep getting disappointed by the cold weather. But it’s going to happen soon, so we’ve been gearing up for tick season. There are a few new initiatives underway for tracking ticks and tickborne diseases in Canadian dogs and cats. Check out the recent post at PetsAndTicks.com for
The snowfall we had on the weekend notwithstanding, spring is here. As the weather warms up in Ontario (and other regions), we have to once again think more about ticks. Once the temperature reaches ~4C, hungry ticks that didn’t feed in the fall will come out, looking for food. Accordingly, tick prevention for people and
