When mpox (formerly monkeypox) started to surge in Ontario back in 2022, I set up a study to try to look at possible human-to-pet transmission of the causative virus (known as MPXV), because we have very little information about the potential risks to pets, and their potential role in transmission. By the time we got
With any new, changing or inadequately investigated infectious disease, we need to first understand the scope of the problem, including the range of species that can be infected. The ongoing human monkeypox outbreak has raised concern about spillback of monkeypox virus into animals from humans since, we don’t know much about susceptible animal species.
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Things have been pretty quite regarding monkeypox in domestic animals lately. Whether that’s because human-to-animal infection is truly rare, and human case numbers are dropping, or whether it’s because there’s not enough surveillance in domestic animals that have been exposed to the virus isn’t clear. I suspect it’s a combination of the two. Our surveillance
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
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
As the current international monkeypox outbreak in people continues, more consideration is being given to the potential impact on, and subsequently from, animals. Animals are the reservoirs for this virus, although there are lots of gaps in our knowledge of the species monkeypox virus can infect.
The current cases outside of Africa are being spread
Local transmission of monkeypox wasn’t on my 2022 bingo card, but I guess we’re learning to expect the unexpected. I commonly talk about monkeypox when discussing zoonotic diseases, especially those associated with importation of animals, as this was highlighted by an outbreak of monkeypox in the US associated with imported rodents from Africa in 2003
