I’ll take a break from writing about widespread canine infectious respiratory disease complex (CIRDC) in North America to talk about a single case of a rare disease in a dog. Wageningen Veterinary Research has reported a case of Bluetongue infection in a dog in the Netherlands, a disease of significant consequence to livestock that’s
Cache Valley Virus in Dogs (and People)
Cache Valley Virus (CVV) has been in the news around here lately. This mosquito-borne virus can be found in various parts of North America, particularly in the southeastern US. It’s been present in Ontario for a while, but has hit the news recently because of a recent outbreak in sheep flocks in the province.…
Medical tourism for animal cell injections….bad idea
Ok, call me risk averse, but traveling to another country to have someone inject me with cells from organs or fetuses of animals isn’t high on my to-do list. I guess that’s a good thing, given the recent article in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describing Q-fever in people from New York who traveled to…
Dumb and dumber get campy
The focus of this blog is companion animals, but sometimes I just can’t resist commenting on other areas, and this one’s too good to pass up.
Today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, published by the CDC, describes Campylobacter jejuni infection in two men. Campylobacter is a zoonotic bacterium that causes diarrhea (and sometime severe…
Cooperating on Q Fever
Another surge in the number of cases of Q fever in people in the Netherlands has been reported. Prior to 2007, the average number of cases of Q fever per year in the country was only 15. In 2007 there were 192 cases, and last year there were 958 cases, making this the…
Echinococcus on the rise in Bashkiria, Russia
Echinococcus granulosus, the cause of hydatid disease/hydatosis in people, is on the rise in the Bashkiria (Bashkortostan) region of Russia. Fifty-three cases were identified in Bashkiria in 2008, 1.7 times the number of cases reported the year before. Over 500 cases of human infection with Echinococcus are reported in Russia annually.
The…
More about Echinococcus tapeworms in dogs
Echinococcus granulosus is a tapeworm of dogs that causes a condition known as hydatid disease or hydatidosis in humans. The parasite is found in many parts of the world, and is very common in some regions of southern South America, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, southwestern Asia, northern Africa and Australia. To the best of…
Q Fever – From goats to people (and pets!)
A major outbreak of Q fever associated with goats has occurred in the Netherlands. Over 500 human cases have been reported since the beginning of 2008. Prior to 2007, the average number of cases per year in the country was only 15.
Q fever is an infection caused by the proteobacterial organism Coxiella burnetii…