Two recent papers have raised concerns about cats in households with cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. People with CF are at high risk for a range of complications because of their condition and the treatments that are required. Some complications can be life-threatening, so there’s lots of research into factors associated with disease in people with
Superbugs and import control
Issues about infectious disease risks from the pretty much totally unregulated importation of dogs continue to rise, and I’m dealing with them in one way or another almost daily at the moment. I’ll stay away from the discussion of what we are and aren’t (mostly the latter) doing in Canada, since I’ve covered that before
Rabies myth-busters 101: Cats and bats
Rabies is a very serious disease. We’re very lucky in Canada that in most parts of the country the prevalence of this disease is now quite low, in large part due to wildlife control and vaccination efforts. Unfortunately that also seems to make some people quite lax when it comes to (common sense) things like
Rabies confusion and clarification: Ontario
Following the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (rather mind-boggling) abandonment of the rabies response portfolio, there’s been a scramble by provinces to figure out what to do. The CFIA will still perform testing, but will not have any role in sample collection, sample shipping or investigation. I’m not sure what most provinces are doing (and based
Rabies three ways
Not many days go by when I don’t get a few calls about rabies. Here are a couple from yesterday that highlight some important issues.
An indoor cat tangled with a bat. The bat’s no longer around to test so this is considered a potential rabies exposure (bats being important rabies vectors, and catching and
Another preventable rabies death
A recent rabies death in a Russian man highlights multiple screw-ups that led to the man’s death.
A 50-year-old man in Smolino Kovvrosko, Russia was bitten by his cat at the end of February.
- Problem #1. The cat was presumably not vaccinated against rabies. Vaccination is not 100% protective but it’s pretty likely this was
Cat attack pins family in bedroom
Actually, the title of this post should be “Obese cat attacks family after being booted in the rear as a disciplinary measure. Family freaks out but wants to keep cat.”
Oh, where to start.
1) A 22 lb cat is obese and there are obviously animal care issues.
2) Kicking a
Raccoons in the bed
There’s been some controversy in the past regarding allowing pets to sleep in or on the bed. I don’t get too worked up about it, since I think it’s very low-risk in terms of disease transmission for most pets and households, but a variety if reasons for prohibiting this practice have been given.
I haven’t
Animal Health Laboratory Zoonotic Diseases Report
The University of Guelph’s Animal Health Laboratory recently published a summary of selected zoonotic disease diagnoses in its monthly newsletter. It’s an interesting summary of what’s gone through the lab in the last year. It also helps to remind us of the zoonotic potential of all of these pathogens, some of which are relatively common
Cat bite infections (and dumb headlines)
It’s a scary sounding headline: “Cat Bites Pose Risk Of Infection As 1 In 3 Patients Bitten Hospitalized; Teeth Inject Bacteria Into Joints, Tissue” and it cites a research article from the Mayo Clinic in the Journal of Hand Surgery (Babovic et al 2014).
Cat bites are nasty. The mouth of