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:
Lots of media reports have been saying that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned people not to dress up their chickens for Halloween.
I wouldn’t have thought that policing chicken fashion would be high on the CDC’s to-do list, but the concern is obviously related to the perpetual
I realize headline writers are trying to attract attention, and sometimes they don’t know much about the content. As a result, some headlines are quite over the top, and that can freak people out. Here are some examples from the past couple of days:
4 year old girl catches life-threatening infection by trying on shoes
Human deaths from rabies are common in some developing countries (where tens of thousands die from canine rabies every year) but rare in developed countries. It’s an almost invariably fatal disease, but at the same time it’s almost completely preventable because of the quality of vaccines and post-exposure prophylaxis available. Getting those treatments to the
Today’s post comes from Rachel Gagnon, Rabies Science Transfer Specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), highlighting some of the amazing work being done in Ontario in the ongoing battle against wildlife rabies.
Ontario’s rabies control program is a world leader when it comes to controlling and eliminating rabies. The MNRF
After a particularly miserable spring here (to put it mildly), it’s finally warming up, and the snow’s almost gone. That’s the good news. The bad news is that ticks are also going to start coming out and looking for food – that means looking for animals (including us).
I assume there will be lots of
Quick 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
Taking 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
I’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
Bacteria 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
