Candida auris is an emerging infectious disease threat. This fungus causes disease almost exclusively in immunocompromised people, with infections most often acquired in hospital. While infections are rare, it’s a bit problem because mortality rates tend to be very high (20-60%), it can cause outbreaks in healthcare facilities, it can live on the skin
Other diseases
Bluetongue In a Dog
I’ll take a break from writing about widespread canine infectious respiratory disease complex (CIRDC) in North America to talk about a single case of a rare disease in a dog. Wageningen Veterinary Research has reported a case of Bluetongue infection in a dog in the Netherlands, a disease of significant consequence to livestock that’s…
H5N1 Avian Flu on Fur Farms… When Will We Learn?
I would have hoped that the issues with SARS-CoV-2 in mink would have been (yet another) wake up call, but I guess not. Some changes have been made in some areas, but it’s status quo in most places. Given our pretty crappy baseline…
Staph felis From a Cat to Its Owner
I doubt you’ll be shocked to hear that the normal host of Staphylococcus felis is cats. It’s a bacterium that can often be found in healthy cats and periodically causes disease in cats (e.g. urinary tract infections). Overall, though, it’s a pretty innocuous bug. Human health risks related to S. felis haven’t been well investigated…
“Misuse and Overuse of Antibiotics Are a Problem.” Yes, but…
As World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2022 winds down, I’ll touch on a statement that I’ve seen a lot over the past week. “We need to reduce misuse and overuse of antibiotics” or “Misuse and overuse of antibiotics are driving antimicrobial resistance (AMR).” Those are great sound bites but largely miss…
Canine Pneumovirus Outbreaks: Important or Not? (Plus a Link to Antimicrobial Stewardship)
I’m focusing on antimicrobials this week since it’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, but this is a timely topic and there’s an antimicrobial twist.
A couple of recent reports about a canine pneumovirus outbreak in a shelter in Tacoma WA and a separate outbreak of canine pneumovirus in a shelter in Las Vegas NV have,…
Antibiotic vs Antimicrobial: What’s in a Name?
I’ve spent a lot of time in meetings listening to people debating whether to use the word “antibiotic” vs “antimicrobial.” I tend to stay out of those discussions because I don’t care too much either way.
- Yes, they mean somewhat different things.
- Yes, we want to be precise when writing guidance documents where the difference
…
Veterinary Antimicrobial Use Targets: Do We Need Them?
As we start World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, I’m going to try to write a few posts about various aspects of antimicrobial use and resistance in animals. This first post is a bit long, but it covers an important topic: antimicrobial use targets.
I get asked a lot about whether antimicrobial use targets are need…
Human-to-Dog Monkeypox, France
I’ll start this off with “don’t freak out, overhype this, or be paranoid about your dog.” (I’ll probably end with that too).
A recent report in Lancet (Seang et al. 2022) describes a pretty solid case of suspected monkeypox virus (MPXV) transmission from people to a dog. The dog, an otherwise healthy Italian…
Animal-Only Antibiotics: A Solution to the Scourge of Antimicrobial Resistance (Spoiler… Probably Not)
There have been calls to develop antibiotics that are just for use in animals, the idea being to have separate antibiotics for animals and people, so that antimicrobial resistance that develops as a result of antibiotic use in animals won’t impact people.
Makes sense, right?
It does, at least at first glance. However, “makes sense”…