I’ve been a laggard with blog posts lately. It’s a bit crazy and it’s been easier to get things out quickly via Twitter (@weese_scott). However, one interesting topic I wanted to get back to is SARS-CoV-2 in deer. It’s caused a big stink in some areas and, like a lot of things involving
More About a Potential Dog-Origin Coronavirus in People
As a journal Associate Editor and reviewer, I see lots of manuscripts about “new” viruses. I tend not to get too excited about most of them, because “new” is usually actually just “new to us” (or newly identified), because as technology improves, we are able to identify lots of viruses that we’ve been living with
Update: COVID-19 in Animals Review Part 5: Horses
This one’s as easy to write as the first version… we still have no clue.
Overall, the health risk to horses from SARS-CoV-2 is probably very low. If horses were getting sick, or at least very sick, we would have noticed by now. I’ve not had any indication that we’re seeing a disease impact
Canine Influenza: California
After a couple of years of very little apparent canine influenza activity in the US, the virus seems to have come back with a vengeance in some parts of California. Canine H3N2 influenza came to North America from Asia in approximately 2015 and caused outbreaks in many areas, but then seemed to slip into
Update: COVID-19 in Animals Review Part 4: Mustelids (Mink and Ferrets)
Mink are not a species most people think about. When they do, they typically think of mink coats or fur farming protests. While the mink industry has been on the decline in most regions for many years, there is still a massive number of mink being farmed for fur internationally. Some of these farms are
Update: COVID-19 in Animals Review Part 3: Pigs
What we know about SARS-CoV-2 in pigs hasn’t changed a lot since the first version of this post. It’s still a fairly “good news” situation, but one that could also use some more investigation.
Are pigs susceptible to SARS-CoV-2?
Kind of, but not really. There are somewhat conflicting experimental data, but the debate is
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”
Update: COVID-19 in Animals Review Part 2: Dogs
There’s not as much to update about SARS-CoV-2 in dogs as there was in cats. We have more numbers than we did before, but the overall issues in dogs and our understanding of them haven’t really changed.
Spoiler alert: dogs and owners can both relax, as the risks are very limited.
Are dogs susceptible
Update: COVID-19 in Animals Review Part 1: Cats
Back in October/November 2020, I wrote a series of posts about what we know about SARS-CoV-2 and different animal species. It’s a dynamic field, so it’s about time I got around to updating them. We’ll start back at the beginning with one of the most susceptible domestic species: cats. A lot of research about
Respiratory Disease Outbreaks In Dogs
For the past year or more, we’ve been trying to track infectious upper respiratory tract disease (officially known as “canine infectious respiratory disease complex (CIRDC)” but more commonly called “kennel cough”). It’s a tough thing to do since testing is limited, the disease is always present to some degree in the dog population, and there’s