Finding H5N1 avian influenza in mice in the US has caused a lot of angst amongst some – some angst is warranted, but some of it is overblown. That’s not because H5N1 isn’t an issue, or that more species being involved isn’t relevant, but because there are bigger issues to address. Adding yet another species
Susceptibility of Wildlife to SARS-CoV-2
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many major agencies took a head-in-the-sand approach to concerns about the potential for SARS-CoV-2 to infect different animal species. Fortunately, over the last year a considerable amount of work has been done to help figure out the range of species that are susceptible to this virus, and shed
Leftover zoonotic disease Q&A, Part 1
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
Deja vu…Salmonella and feeder mice
In some ways, it doesn’t surprise me because it’s happened many times before. However, you’d think that, at some point, things would start to improve.
Apparently not.
The US CDC is reporting yet another outbreak of salmonellosis associated with contact with feeder mice, that is, mice produced commercially to feed to pet reptiles. Sadly
Feeder rodent Salmonella alert, Ontario
A local county newspaper had a front page headline about a zoning amendment that was approved to allow for a feeder rodent facility that will produce about 10 000 rodents a week (I know, apparently there aren’t a lot of big things happen around here). Co-incidentally, a couple days later, I received an alert and
Sssnakes and Sssalmonella
The fact that Salmonella and reptiles go together is old news. I often get questions about testing reptiles to see if they are Salmonella carriers and I tell people not to bother since even with a negative result, I’d consider the animal to be positive. A recent study in the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife
LCMV in rodent facility workers
I’ve written about lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) before, as an interesting but pretty uncommon rodent-associated disease. Human infections are mainly associated with handling rodents, although other routes of transmission, such as organ transplantation from an infected donor, have also been reported. Being a disease associated with rodents and considering how rodents are produced in North
The outbreak that won’t go away
The CDC is investigating CDC is investigating more cases of salmonellosis associated with feeder rodent contact, caused by the less-than-catchy-named Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:-. This strain is the same one that was implicated in a large and prolonged outbreak in the US and UK in 2009-2010 which was also associated with frozen feeder rodents (rodents