As H5N1 avian flu ramps up again across Canada with the fall wild bird migration, we’re likely going to see more situations where more unique populations of captive birds are affected, beyond the usual large or small poultry flocks. The CFIA’s standard response to highly pathogenic avian flu (like the current H5N1 strain) is “
Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease Virus Vaccine Now Available in Canada
Since rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus type II (RHDV2) made its first incursion into Canada, and again more recently with the first detection of this virus in Ontario, there’s been a lot of interest in vaccination of rabbits (rabbits and hares are the only species known to be affected). Effective vaccines are available for this
Salmonella in Reptiles
If you follow zoonotic diseases, you might look at the title of this post and think “What is he rehashing now? We already know Salmonella is common in reptiles, and contact with reptiles is a major risk factor for salmonellosis in people.”
In large part, you’d be right. Not a lot has changed
Update: Michigan Dog Disease
We already have an update on the Michigan dog disease outbreak that I wrote about yesterday which has attracted a lot of attention.
An update (August 24) from the Michigan State Veterinarian indicates this appears to be an outbreak of parvovirus. I’m not overly surprised. As I wrote yesterday:
An outbreak of our typical canine
Outbreak of Fatal Disease in Michigan Dogs? What Is It, Is It Real and What Do We Know?
I
’ve been holding off writing about this, hoping for more details, but my inbox has been flooded with questions about it so I figured I’d get the ball rolling. There’s been a bit of a media frenzy about an apparent outbreak of severe disease in dogs in northern Michigan.
What do we know?
New Rustrela Virus Linked To Neurological Disease in European Cats
As an Associate Editor for Emerging Infectious Diseases and as a frequent peer reviewer for other journals, I see lots of paper that report finding a “new” virus. These can be a challenge to interpret, because advances in technology now let us find things we’ve never been able to find before. The problem is, we
What To Do With Monkeypox-Exposed Pets?
Now that human-dog transmission of monkeypox has been identified, there’s a lot more interest in what to do about animals that have been exposed to infected people. As more people get monkeypox, more animals will be exposed. We want to reduce the risk of animals getting infected (and possibly then infecting more people), while
Human-to-Dog Monkeypox, France
I’ll start this off with “don’t freak out, overhype this, or be paranoid about your dog.” (I’ll probably end with that too).
A recent report in Lancet (Seang et al. 2022) describes a pretty solid case of suspected monkeypox virus (MPXV) transmission from people to a dog. The dog, an otherwise healthy Italian
Reptile- and Feeder Rodent-Associated Salmonellosis: Alberta
Alberta Health Services is reporting a cluster of Salmonella infections linked to pet reptiles. In many ways, this isn’t really remarkable (unless you’re one of the people who’s infected). Reptile contact is a very well-known risk factor for acquiring Salmonella, especially in kids.
So far, 12 infections have been reported. Reported cases are always
Raw Diets and Shedding of Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria in Dogs
People can get pretty fired up when I talk about raw diets for pets. I’ll start off with my personal bias: I’d rather not see pets fed raw meat and raw animal-based products (e.g. pig ears and various bits-o-cow you can find in pet stores). There are clear risks to pets and owners from raw