What happens to animals with Ebola? Dallas officials vow to care for Nina Pham’s dog

[Little Star]

HEALTH officials in Texas are faced with a second major dilemma amid the current Ebola crisis: What to do with the pet dog of the nurse who contracted the disease?

Authorities are currently trying to find an appropriate place to monitor a dog that belongs to Nina Pham, the nurse who contracted the disease after caring for Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
~snip~

It's not yet known if dogs can catch and spread Ebola — a disease which is naturally found in fruit bats, according to the World Health Organization.

It’s also been recorded in monkeys, apes, chimpanzees and pigs, with humans thought to catch the disease from hunting animals for their meat in Africa.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/what-happens-to-animals-with-ebola-dallas-officials-vow-to-care-for-nina-phams-dog/story-fneuzlbd-1227089692988

[get the red out]

1. I am glad the officials in Dallas are saving this dog

Very glad. If I were ill, and someone killed my dog, I can guarantee that I would not survive. Not that my life means much, since I love dogs and that doesn't seem popular in these days of EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA.

[kestrel91316]

4. What happens if it turns out that dogs shed Ebola virus transiently while they are

asymptomatically infected, genius? What's your plan for handling THAT?

Individual rights take a back seat to public health concerns where lethal infectious diseases are concerned. That's the law.

If your dog were thought to be rabid, the authorities would have the right AND THE DUTY to euthanize it. Your opinion wouldn't matter in the least. Because we're all in this to save human lives, and that occasionally means some animals will lose their lives.

[get the red out]

5. Fear-mongering run rampant

This is an excellent test to prove how long it takes for the virus, if the dog even has it, to pass from it's system while it is in QUARANTINE. It might be better to try to control your massive fear of unproven, web-driven, hysteria.

Of course who am I to piss on someone's hysteria parade?

[kestrel91316]

6. Excuse me, little girl. I am a veterinarian with 32 years in practice, and a more than passing

familiarity with lethal zoonoses.

You, OTH, are what? A person with an opinion based on other people's opinions???

The only thing I am afraid of here is stupidity, hubris, and gross misunderstanding of basic principles of epidemiology and sound, evidence-based lethal zoonosis management. I've seen firsthand the harm they can do, and my life was put at risk needlessly because of such hubris.

You need to do some homework before you go accusing me or any veterinarian of fearmongering about dogs and Ebola:

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/3/pdfs/04-0981.pdf

".....Symptoms did not develop in any of these highly exposed animals during the outbreak, a finding that tends to support antigenic stimulation, asymptomatic, or very mild Ebola virus infection. Wild animals, especially gorillas and chimpanzees, can also be infected by Ebola virus, but the infection is highly lethal and causes huge outbreaks and massive population declines (5,14). Other animals such as guinea pigs (15), goats (16), and horses (17) remain asymptomatic or develop mild symptoms after experimental infection, but Ebola virus infection has never been observed in these species in the wild. Thus, dogs appear to be the first animal species shown to be naturally and asymptomatically infected by Ebola virus. Asymptomatic Ebola infection in humans has also been observed during outbreaks (18) but is very rare. Although dogs can be asymptomatically infected, they may excrete infectious viral particles in urine, feces, and saliva for a short period before virus clearance, as observed experimentally in other animals. Given the frequency of contact between humans and domestic dogs, canine Ebola infection must be considered as a potential risk factor for human infection and virus spread. Human infection could occur through licking, biting, or grooming. Asymptomatically infected dogs could be a potential source of human Ebola outbreaks and of virus spread during human outbreaks, which could explain some epidemiologically unrelated human cases. Dogs might also be a source of human Ebola outbreaks, such as the 1976 Yambuku outbreaks in Democratic Republic of Congo (19), the 1995 Kikwit outbreak, some outbreaks that occurred in 1996 and 2004 in Gabon and Republic of Congo (5), and the 1976 (6), 1979 (20), and 2004 (21) outbreaks in Sudan, the sources of which are still unknown. Together, these findings strongly suggest that dogs should be taken into consideration during the management of human Ebola outbreaks. To confirm the potential human risk of Ebola virus–infected dogs, the mechanisms of viral excretion (i.e. body fluids and virus kinetics of excretion) should be investigated during experimental canine infection. This research would also offer insights into the natural resistance of dogs.

If you haven't read this, the only research study of Ebola in dogs in existence, you better do so before saying one more stupid, insulting, and completely false thing about the subject.

[magical thyme]

2. they've already moved Bently to an unidentified location

where he's being well cared for and has toys to play with.

I read he's "perplexed" but doing well.

[Marrah_G]

3. They can catch it but it doesn't make them sick

What they do not know yet is whether or not it can then be passed back to humans.