By Scott Weese on Posted in Birds,Cats,Dogs,Other animals,ReptilesQuick question: what species do you think accounts for the most human deaths in the US? A recent paper in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine (Forrester et al, 2017. An update on fatalities due to venomous and nonvenomous animals in the United States, (2008-2015)) explored this topic, using a CDC database to study deaths that occurred… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Reptiles,SalmonellaTaking a break from canine flu and going back to an old favorite… Salmonella and reptiles. CDC has released their final update on a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Agbeni infections associated with contact with pet turtles. Turtles are very well known as high risk animals for transmitting Salmonella. Even healthy turtles often carry Salmonella and… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,SalmonellaI’m giving my brain a short break from canine flu, so here’s an interesting report about a multistate US outbreak of salmonellosis linked to… no, not turtles… no, not baby poultry… but guinea pigs. While guinea pigs have been associated with a few different zoonotic diseases, they’re a pretty benign pet species overall. Yet, our… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in MRSA/MRSP,Other animalsBacteria are smarter than we give them credit for. Or maybe we’re not a bright as we think we are. Antimicrobial stewardship is sometimes (wrongly) assumed to simply be the practice of “using fewer antimicrobials,” but it’s more complex than that, because the issue is complex. At face value, overall reduction in antimicrobial use is… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Birds,Cats,Dogs,Other animals,ReptilesI’ve written (ok… ranted) about fake service and support animals for years. Beyond frustration with the self-centred and/or “look at me!” aspects, my main concern with the proliferation of fake service animals and questionable emotional support animals is the potential negative impacts on the “real” service and support animals, and the people who actually need… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsIt’s easy to get hung up on odd ball reports, since they’re interesting and novel. Their overall impact is pretty low, but they often have some reasonable take-home messages. So, here’s another odd ball report: leprosy in a Canadian who had never traveled beyond Canada and the US (Bonnar et al, 2018 Emerging Infectious Diseases). Leprosy is… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsBREAKING NEWS out of Washington DC as the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today issued a movement permit to Mr. S. Claus of the North Pole, a broker with Worldwide Gifts, Unlimited. The permit will allow reindeer to enter and exit the United States between the hours of 6 PM December 24,… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Animals,Birds,Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animals,Other diseases,Pocket petsThe post below is reproduced from CANresist.blog. It applies equally for veterinary medicine. I think most people buy into the concept of fossil fuels being finite resources. Someday, they’ll run out or logistics and cost of extraction will make them impractical. Accordingly, we’re thinking about ways to reduce and improve use (to delay the end of the… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Other diseasesThe World Health Organization has released new guidelines on the use of “medically important antimicrobials” (MIAs) in food animals. Here’s a list of their recommendations, along with the strength of each recommendation and quality of evidence behind it. We recommend an overall reduction in use of all classes of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals (Strong… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Other diseasesFrom CANresist.blog: Reducing Antibiotic Use in Dairy Calves This topic’s huge, and there’s always a risk of trying to oversimplify the problem or solutions. However, some solutions for some issues might be fairly straightforward. Whether it’s on a farm, in a hospital or in a doctors office, there are situations where I think it’s widely… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Birds,Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animalsIntroducing CANresist, a new initiative aimed at fostering antibiotic stewardship in Canada across the human and animal health fields and beyond, in order to maintain the effectiveness of these life-saving drugs. Follow us at CANresist.com or CANresist.blog, or on Facebook. Also check out our Twitter feed @CANADAresist, including our #mylastantibiotic tag to talk about the last time… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Other diseasesYes, piranha bite response is a pretty niche topic. Nevertheless, it’s interesting (at least to me). A recent paper in Pediatric Emergency Care (Berkowitz and Goldsmith. An unexpected fish bite. 2017) covers this topic. It starts off this way: A 22-month-old boy presented to the pediatric emergency department with a missing right fourth distal phalanx… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Other diseasesWhen I think about bad things that can happen from interacting with a crocodile, infectious diseases don’t jump to the top of my list (ingestion and amputation being the two first things that come to mind). That leads me to the first crocodile story (thanks Stephen), a rather light-hearted description that everyone but the bitten… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,RabiesHere’s the latest map of the terrestrial rabies cases in southwestern Ontario. Raccoon-variant cases still centre on the Hamilton area. It was never assumed that this particular outbreak would be eliminated quickly, given the case numbers seen in the first several months and the additional challenges of trying to control the spread of the virus in… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animalsIt’s commonly been stated that it’s important to finish your course of antibiotics (whether “your” refers to a person or animal), as a means of reducing the risk of developing antibiotic resistance. That’s never made much sense to me, since more antibiotic exposure is more likely to lead to a risk of resistance emerging. However,… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,SalmonellaA playground in New South Wales, Australia, has been closed because its sandpit was linked to salmonellosis in two children. Sandboxes are a potential source of a few different infectious diseases since they can be used as litterboxes by animals such as cats, raccoons, and apparently, bandicoots. In the Australian incident, two kids were diagnosed… 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 Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,ParasitesI think petting zoos can be great. I’ve taken my kids to many and think they’re a great way for people to see and interact with animals they would not normally encounter. However, there’s always some risk, and petting zoos range from exceptionally well run to horrible. It seems like there’s been steady improvement over… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Birds,Cats,Dogs,Other animals,Pocket pets,ReptilesThis month’s edition of the Internal Medicine Journal contains an article entitled High rates of potentially infectious exposures between immunocompromised patients and their companion animals: an unmet need for education (Gurry et al. 2017). The study is fairly superficial and there’s nothing particularly surprising in the paper, with results similar to what has been reported in… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animals,Rabies,VaccinationThe 2016 Compendium of Animal Rabies Prevention and Control has been released by the US’s National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians (NASPHV). This version has updates in a few different areas, such as some changes to recommendations for dogs, cats and ferrets that have potentially been exposed to rabies. It can be downloaded directly here or be found… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Rabies,VaccinationEvery few days, it seems, I get an email or call that goes something like “I was just bitten by [insert various mammals here]. Do I need to worry about rabies or do anything?” The answer’s pretty similar every time. While the relative risk posed by different animal species in different geographic regions varies, you… 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 Other animalsAgritourism is becoming a big industry. As our society gets more urbanized, there’s increasing interest in visiting farms and similar environments. Things like farm visits and petting zoos can be great, especially for kids. They’re also sometimes associated with infectious diseases, most often in kids. Some agritourism events are well run and take a lot of… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsWhen I got into vet school, I didn’t imagine that I’d have to know much about mosquito biology. (I probably didn’t really imagine that when I graduated either, to tell the truth). However, as I focused on infectious diseases, it became apparent that understanding certain aspects of inner-workings of mosquitoes (and ticks, and various other… Continue Reading
