I spend a lot of time talking to people about leptospirosis in dogs and the risks to people. From a zoonotic disease standpoint, I spend half my time trying to raise awareness of the potential for transmission of this bacterium from infected dogs to people. I spend the other half trying to talk people off
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.
I’ve had a few discussions with people over the past week about geographic variation in disease risk. It’s a great subject because it’s an important and often overlooked issue. Whether it’s animals being imported, animals moving with their owners, animals accompanying owners on vacation or animals being moved between regions within the county, movement between
I did a talk recently for Third Age Learning in Guelph, and there was an abundance of questions. I didn’t get through them all at the time, so I figured I’d address some of them here:
Do mice carry rabies?
Mice aren’t rabies reservoirs like raccoons, skunks or bats, as they don’t have a
A Fremont, California dog park was temporarily closed in response to concerns about canine leptospirosis after 4 reports of dogs contracting the disease, potentially associated with exposure at the park. It’s always hard to determine the source of exposure with lepto, but a park is certainly possible. We don’t understand a lot about how and
Minus 20C weather is supposed to have some benefits – at least that’s what we try to tell ourselves. (Maybe we’re just trying to justify why we haven’t migrated south.)
I’ve written about leptospirosis a few times recently, given the horrible lepto season we’ve been having. This bacterial disease isn’t new, but there have been
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, this seems to have been a bad year for leptospirosis in dogs in various areas. In at least a few location in Ontario, we are seeing a very high rate of disease, well beyond what we’ve seen before. I was giving some talks in Buffalo the other
When Puerto Rico was devastated this fall by Hurricane Maria, I got a few calls from groups thinking about rescuing dogs from the island, and wanting to know what infectious diseases I’d be concerned about. Leptospirosis, a potentially serious bacterial infection that can be transmitted from dogs to people (although that’s fortunately uncommon), was at
Leptospirosis is a potentially nasty bacterial infection that can cause severe kidney disease (among other things) and is acquired from the environment, in cool damp areas that are contaminated with urine from infected reservoir hosts (e.g. rats, raccoons, other wildlife). It can also potentially be transmitted to people through contact with urine from an infected
When I think about bad things that can happen from interacting with a crocodile, infectious diseases don’t jump to the top of my list (ingestion and amputation being the two first things that come to mind). That leads me to the first crocodile story (thanks Stephen), a rather light-hearted description that everyone but the bitten
