I’ve written before about animal vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 with regard to mink, but with Russia having recently licensed its Carnivac-Cov vaccine for use in several species (namely dogs, cats, foxes and mink) and Zoetis developing a vaccine in the US for mink, there’s continued interest in the subject, so I’ll revisit it.
I’m glad
Lyme disease vaccine is a non-core vaccine, meaning it’s not needed for all dogs in all areas. It’s an effective vaccine, and I’d consider it a reasonable vaccine to give to dogs in (or visiting) higher risk areas, especially when there might be owner compliance issues with tick preventive medication. Available tick preventatives are very
This is probably the vaccine about which I get the most questions when it comes to delays. Leptospirosis (aka lepto) is a regionally important and potentially life-threatening infection of dogs (and people) caused by serovars of the Leptospira bacterium. It’s generally considered a non-core vaccine, meaning it’s not needed for all dogs in all areas.
In some ways, the approach to rabies vaccine is easy. In other ways, it’s complicated. To some degree, the medicine is easy, but other considerations (like regulatory requirements) cloud the picture.
The medicine:
Rabies vaccines are highly effective. A single initial dose provides at least 1 year of protection. The first dose is supposed
I’ve been dealing with questions (and some threats) about this issue for many months:
How to handle overdue vaccines because of COVID-19 delays
It’s a complex issue that’s hard to navigate because of limited data. We know how most vaccines work when used according to the label instructions. We don’t know much about what happens
While the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated controversies continue to dominate our collective attention, much older, more familiar diseases are still out there too, causing their old familiar – and deadly – problems. Rabies has once again reared its snarling head, this time in the small Arctic coastal community of Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. Rabies is
The amount of money being spent developing a COVID-19 vaccine is astounding. (The amount being spent on ensuring people will actually get such a vaccine, not so much – but that’s a different story.)
Beyond vaccine hesitancy, one potentially major issue with vaccination is inequity. Rich countries have greater ability to produce and/or buy vaccine.
Since the recently reported case of rabies in a man from BC, Canada, I’ve done a lot of interviews. One thing that has struck me is the continued misconception about what rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is, and the perception that it’s a long, painful ordeal.
It isn’t (at least not anymore)… and I know
Canine influenza is (once again) causing big problems in some parts of the western US. Following reports of influenza outbreaks in animal shelters in Oakland, California, it’s apparent that it has spread within California shelters and to an Oregon shelter. It is also affecting pet dogs in various cities in California.
It’s
During today’s Public Health Agency of Canada webinar, part of a new webinar series on zoonoses and adaptation in a changing world, Chelsea Raybern from the Kansas State Deptartment of Health and Environment provided a report about rabies in a dog that was imported into Kansas from Egypt in 2019.
