Warning: Long post. Lots to unpack here.
As H5N1 avian influenza continues to spillover into domestic animals and people, the question of when to test animals (especially cats) keeps coming up. Testing isn’t just a matter of swabbing a bunch of animals and sending the samples to the lab (which unfortunately is not uncommonly done
As H5N1 avian influenza continues its unprecedented spread internationally among wild birds, domestic bird, different mammals and even people, concerns continue to increase. One of the things that increases risk with influenza viruses is the number of species a strain can infect. The more species the virus can infect, the more risk of exposure to
While rabies kills approximately 50,000 people a year globally, there’s no reason anyone should die from rabies in places where people have access to a well developed public health system. Rabies is almost invariably fatal, but is also almost entirely preventable with appropriate and timely response to an exposure. The weak link is getting people
Recently, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) designated leptospirosis vaccination to be a “core” vaccination in dogs. That means it’s recommended for all dogs. I’ve had a lot of veterinarians asking questions about this, since traditionally leptospirosis vaccination has been positioned as “optional” based on an individual dog’s risk of exposure.
I’ve considered this
Earlier this year, our ability to treat feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) in Canada was revolutionized through legal access to imported GS-441524. I don’t use “revolutionized” lightly. This drug has changed FIP from an almost invariably fatal disease to one with a 90+% cure rate in cats.
People have (illegally) imported black market versions of
The ongoing H5N1 avian flu pandemic in wild birds (and all its various spillovers into domestic poultry, cattle, wildlife and sometime people) has led to a lot of questions about how we handle situations that increase human or domestic mammal contacts with wild birds. This includes a range of activities and animals, including:
A presumptive case of H5 avian influenza has been reported in a teenager from British Columbia. Confirmatory testing is underway. Very little additional information has been released, so it’s hard to say how surprising and concerning it is. Information vacuums like this often lead to excessive speculation, but information sharing has to be balanced with
Our latest WormsAndGermsPod episode is a chat with Andy Gibson and Ian Battersby about canine rabies and, in particular, the work of Mission Rabies to help achieve the goal of zero canine-mediated rabies deaths by 2030.
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This week US officials reported a case of H5N1 influenza in a pig in the Oregon. While it’s certainly a noteworthy finding, as is unfortunately now typical, a lot of the social media buzz is overblown. This is a concerning situation that we need to watch, and yet another indicator that we need to continue
I’ve had a few questions about the risks posed by heartworm in imported dogs to local dogs. (This also speaks to just how often we import heartworm-infected dogs, but that’s another story…). Here’s a bit of a deeper dive into the topic based on a fictionalized (but very typical) scenario:
You live in Guelph, Ontario
