I’ve had a few discussions with people over the past week about geographic variation in disease risk. It’s a great subject because it’s an important and often overlooked issue. Whether it’s animals being imported, animals moving with their owners, animals accompanying owners on vacation or animals being moved between regions within the county, movement between
More Brucella canis: Ontario
This is another one of those “I can’t say much specific because of privacy laws, but there’s so much social media paranoia that I have to say something.”
Is there concern about Brucella canis in Ontario?
- Yes. We have been concerned about this bacterium for a while, particularly in imported dogs and commercial
New infographics: Echinococcus multilocularis, feline upper respiratory tract infection
The title says it all… see below for the latest and greatest infographics from the Ontario Animal Health Network, including an update to the very popular E. multilocularis infographic and a new one on treatment of feline upper respiratory tract infection.
To download the infographics in pdf format, visit oahn.ca at these links:
New imported distemper strain in dogs
Here’s a report from Cornell University’s Animal Health Diagnostic Center, describing importation of a canine distemper strain that hasn’t been found before in North America:
02/05/2019: (N. America) In early October of 2018, a 12-week old “Sheltie” arrived from Korea. Approximately 12 days later, the dog began with a cough and lethargy with blood
Update: Canine influenza, Ontario (December 3)
I’m once again prepared to call Ontario (and Canada) canine influenza-free… for now, at least. The latest cluster, associated with another importation of the virus from China, seems to have been contained.
The last new positive case was identified October 30, with the likely date of exposure being October 23. We are now beyond the
A new Staph on the block
It’s probably not actually a “new” bacterium but rather recognition of a species that we’ve been mixing up with something else, but regardless, a paper in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (yes, that’s an actual journal) describes a new Staphylococcus species, Staphylococcus cornubiensis (Murray et al. 2018).
Here’s what we know:
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
Updated Lyme disease risk map and infographic
Public Health Ontario has once again posted their updated Lyme Disease Risk Areas map for 2018. For comparison, you can still also access the 2017 map too, and you can see that once again (not surprisingly) the risk areas have expanded somewhat, including more of Eastern Ontario, as well as a few notable
Yet another reason not to feed raw chicken
As if another reason was needed, a recent study from Australia (Martinez-Anton et al. 2018 J Vet Internal Med) found a strong association between dogs that consume raw chicken meat and a serious neurological condition known as acute polyradiculoneuritis (APN). APN is comparable to Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) in humans. The main objective of
Update: Petland puppy Campylobacter outbreak (Jan 29)
I was talking to someone today about their new puppy, their puppy’s diarrhea and (take a guess) the fact that they developed diarrhea shortly thereafter. Odds are pretty good that puppy and owner both have campylobacteriosis. While this infection isn’t related to the ongoing US multistate Campylobacter outbreak linked to puppies from Petland stores,