A number of Ontario fairs have cancelled horse shows because of concerns about strangles. Strangles is a nasty and highly contagious disease of horses caused by the bacterium Streptococcus equi, which is currently circulating in horses in Ontario (as in most places where horses are present). While most horses recover uneventfully from the
Horses
Canadian spotlight report: Preserving antibiotics
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…
2018 Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses (CPHAZ) Annual Report
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
Streptococcal infection from a horse
A common limitation of studies or case reports of zoonotic pathogens or infections is that they are one sided – they often just discuss the human case(s), or they just report carriage of a pathogen in animals. Case reports of human infections often only go as far as saying something along the lines of “…
Annual US rabies report 2017
As is typical for this time of year, the annual US rabies report has been published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Ma et al, 2018).
Here are some highlights:
- 4454 rabid animals were identified across the country. This is certainly a marked underestimate of the actual number since most
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PetsAndTicks.com: Our 400th tick of the year
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Eastern Equine Encephalitis: Ontario
It’s that time of year. Mosquitoes have been annoying me for months (I get bitten multiple times a day where I live, even with repellent), but now they’re becoming a bigger issue. While mosquitoes bite all season, some of the diseases they transmit are only a significant risk at certain times of year.
One high…
Update: Tick map July 30, 2018
Here are some pictures of the latest tick maps from PetsAndTicks.com.
As expected, tick reports are down this time of year, but they’re likely to increase a lot in September as we see the next big wave of ticks come out looking for food.
Anti-vaccination and a fatal disease from horses
Being an equine vet in some parts of Australia (namely Queensland) is scary… to the point that people are leaving equine practice or refusing to treat certain cases. That’s because of Hendra virus, a bat-associated virus that infects horses and which can spill over into people. It hasn’t infected many people, but it is…
Bird bugs, horse abortions and sick vet students
When I talk about infection control (or infectious diseases, in general), I emphasize the need to avoid tunnel vision. Sometimes, we run into situations where someone says “that animal tested negative for [name your bug], so we don’t have anything to worry about.”
Well, no.
It means you (probably) don’t have to worry about that…