While COVID-19 is almost exclusively a human disease, it’s clear there can be spillover into animals. That’s probably of greatest concern in pets, because of the amount of contact we have with them and the susceptibility of some pet species (especially cats and ferrets). However, while we have less contact with other types of animals,

While the whole story hasn’t been sorted out, it seems pretty clear that one or more animal species at the Wuhan Seafood Market (which sold much more than just aquatic animals and their products) was the source of the novel coronavirus.  Just like SARS.

Once again, this has raised concerns about markets where diverse live

And now for something completely different.

We’ve studied Clostridium difficile in my lab for years and we probably have one of the world’s most diverse collections of this important bacterium. We have thousands of isolates from people, pets, livestock and many different wildlife species (as well as from meat, vegetables and water).  Most of the

I’m taking a Brucella break to post a few interesting rabies stories.

More rabies in Nunavut

A rabies warning was issued to residents of Taloyoak, Nunavut in response to identification of rabies in “a number” of dogs and foxes (I’m not sure what that number is).

This isn’t really new, as Arctic fox rabies is

Echinococcus multilocularis, a small tapeworm with a big name, is causing big concerns in Ontario, an area that was until recently considered free of this parasite. This tapeworm is normally found in the intestinal tract of wild canids (e.g. coyotes, foxes) and can also infect dogs. That itself isn’t a problem, since the intestinal