UPDATE: Shortly after this was posted, the US CDC walked back most of the requirements discussed below. This post will be left up for the historical record, but please note that the information no longer applies. Updated information was posted on July 22, 2024.
Changes to US canine importation rules continue to confuse, confound and
I spend a lot of time talking to people about leptospirosis in dogs and the risks to people. From a zoonotic disease standpoint, I spend half my time trying to raise awareness of the potential for transmission of this bacterium from infected dogs to people. I spend the other half trying to talk people off
“Update” may be a bit of an oversell in this case, but here’s some more information on the upcoming changes to US dog importation rules that kind of came out of nowhere. We’re still trying to sort out a number of issues, both in terms of the big picture and minor operational details; hopefully we’ll
I know seals are mammals.
I know rabies virus can infect all mammals.
I’m pretty tuned into rabies and rabies prevention.
Yet, I’m not sure how quickly I’d clue in to any rabies risk from a seal bite. (I’d hopefully get there eventually, but I doubt it would jump to mind like it would with
There’s a great new early-release paper in Emerging Infectious Diseases (Oguzie et al. 2024) about the emerging situation with H5N1 influenza in dairy cattle. It provides some important new information, and more details that somewhat challenge the early narrative.
The authors explain some of the limitations of the study to keep in
Adding to the “that was not on my bingo card” theme of the 2020s, there was a recent fatal H5N2 avian influenza infection in a person in Mexico.
First important point: this was H5N2, not the H5N1 strain we’ve been focused on for the past few years in bird (and spilling over into
When an unvaccinated person is exposed to rabies, they typically receive post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) consisting of a dose of anti-rabies antibodies and four (4) rabies vaccines over the course of two weeks. In dogs and cats, it’s a different story. We don’t use formal PEP protocols in pets in most regions.
The US has been tinkering (for the good) with their canine importation rules for the past few years, primarily in response to concerns about importing rabid dogs. The US had just announces a new set of rules for importing dogs, that come into effect August 1, 2024. The new rules aim to provide more assurance
In case you need a break from all the discussion about H5N1 influenza and the multitude of species it now seems to be able to infect, there’s nothing like a good zoonotic parasite story to make your skin (or pants in this case) crawl. (I promise that this will be a normal-length blog post…
Reptiles and Salmonella is about as far from a new story as anything on this blog, but talking about it is still worthwhile, because it’s still making people ill. I’ll package two similar stories into one post here.
