An update to the Canadian COVID-19 in animals FAQ for veterinarians (30-Apr-2020) has been released.
Like pretty much any other document during this dynamic situation, it gets outdated as soon as we finish it (the original version was released more than a month ago), but it’s a good outline of what we know
A few quick updates and comments.
Are pugs a high risk breed for SARS-CoV-2?
This question has come up a few times since the report of an infected pug in North Carolina. It has been suggested by some people in news articles that pugs are higher risk for getting infected. Like other brachycephalic (squishy
How to practice veterinary medicine in a COVID-19 world is causing a lot of angst. Questions about dental procedures often top the list. Rightly so, since those are perhaps the highest risk type of procedure for SARS-CoV-2 exposure from animals. Dentistry involves close contact with the face and respiratory secretions, and the potential generation of
Here’s one for the “not surprising but freaking people out” files.
A dog in the North Carolina (US) has tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The dog was in a household with infected people, and was tested a part of household surveillance study coordinated by researchers at Duke University. The
Newton’s third law is “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
COVID-19’s first law is “For many actions, there’s a big over-reaction.”
Careful communication is important to limit the impact of COVID-19’s first law. However, some over-reaction is still going to occur.
One of the big concerns about
Updated document: April 28, 2020
Below are some timely comments, headed up by OVC veterinary parasitologist Dr. Andrew Peregrine, about heartworm testing and heartworm preventive administration during this period of “urgent care only” veterinary services. You can also click here for a pdf version of the comments. Please note that this was created for
The hunt for the intermediate host for SARS-CoV-2 continues. It’s pretty universally accepted (the odd conspiracy theorist aside) that this virus, like SARS and MERS, originated in bats. How it made it to people is an important question we’d like to answer to help understand this virus and future risks.
Figuring that out is challenging
Here’s a break from COVID-19 posts, because other infectious disease challenges do still exist!
The latest edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases has an interesting paper that provides an overview of a decade’s worth of cases of the fungal disease blastomycosis in Minnesota. Blastomycosis is caused by the fungus Blastomyces dermatitidis. It’s called a
Let’s just call this an “odds and ends” post. I’ll outline some interesting highlights from some recent papers, including a couple just posted overnight.
More on predicted susceptible hosts (pre-print (i.e. not peer reviewed) on BioRxiv)
This study looked at genomic data from 410 vertebrates, including 252 mammals, and the researchers ranked the different animal
A new paper is suggesting dogs played a role in the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
Doubtful. I suspect this will be like the snake-origin story… lots of initial press but ultimately not much support. (The snake paper was largely debunked within about 24 hours.)
The current study, released a few minutes ago by the journal
