The old saying is "when you hear hoof-steps, think horses, not zebras." In a medical context, it means common things occur commonly, so don’t start off thinking about wild and bizarre conditions before you’ve ruled out the usual suspects. Along that line, when I hear "rabies," I think "bats, raccoons, dogs, cats
Pet travel misinformation
Travel always carries a risk of infectious diseases. More people are paying attention to their health and going to travel clinics to find out about these risks and what preventive measures they can take. They still constitute only a minority of travelers, but it’s an improvement. There aren’t travel clinics for pets, so travelers thinking
Israel issues rabies travel warning for tourists to India
Israel’s Health Ministry is recommending rabies vaccination for people traveling to India.This seems to be mainly in response to the recent high-profile case of an English woman who died of rabies acquired from a dog in India. While it was high-profile, that certainly wasn’t the only travel-associated rabies infection in the past year.
Travel-associated rabies in the UK
Just as I was getting ready to write about a recent case of travel-associated rabies in the UK, a second suspected case has been identified in the UK. They’re not linked and it’s just a co-incidence that the two have been identified in a short period of time, but they highlight the potential risks of
Toronto rabies case update
Identification of the strain of rabies in the first person in Toronto to be diagnosed with rabies in the past 81 years has essentially confirmed that the infection was acquired abroad. Toronto Public Health has indicated that the strain obtained from the infected man is one known to circulate in dogs in the Dominican Republic
Rabies in Toronto man
Toronto Public Health has confirmed the diagnosis of rabies in a person in the city of Toronto, the first such diagnosis since 1931. Details are limited at this point, but there appears to be strong suspicion that this is a travel-associated infection.
The affected person is a 41-year-old man who was working in the
Blastomycosis in Michigan dogs
Close to a dozen dogs in the Big Bay area of Michigan’s upper peninsula have been diagnosed with blastomycosis, an uncommon but regionally important disease. Blastomycosis is caused by a fungus, Blastomyces dermatitidis. It’s a dimorphic fungus, meaning it exists in 2 forms:
- Normally, it lives in the environment in the mold form.
Travel, pets and infectious disease risks
An important concept when dealing with infectious diseases is consideration of the risk that an animal has been, or will be, exposed to a particular microorganism. Some diseases vary greatly geographically, and something that’s very important in one region may be rare or non-existent in another. Good veterinarians are aware of disease trends in their