Accidental rabies imports emphasize value of quarantine

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:

 

 

Accidental rabies imports emphasize value of quarantine

 

LONDON, BRUSSELS--Health experts are hoping the prominence

of the most recent rescuer involved in accidentally importing a rabid

dog will emphasize to the international rescue community the need to

quarantine as well as vaccinate.

SOS Sri Lanka founder Kim Cooling and two workers at the

Chingford Quarantine Kennels in northeast London were repeatedly

bitten by an eight-week-old puppy between April 23 and April 25,

2008. The puppy died later on April 25. Rabies was diagnosed a few

hours afterward.

" She just snapped at me and was snapping at the other pups.

She was not her usual sweet self. She bit me in three places, on my

wrist, hand and chin, " Cooling told Mark Townsend and Caroline

Davies of The Observer. Cooling, a social worker and former nurse,

was hospitalized for observation. " I am shattered at the moment,

but I am feeling okay, " she said. " I had already been vaccinated,

and have had boosters. "

The rabid puppy was one of 13 whom Cooling brought from Sri

Lanka on April 17. Four others were killed and decapitated for

rabies testing after the first pup died.

" She had been vaccinated in Sri Lanka, but the infection

must already have been in her, " Cooling said of the puppy who bit

her. " The other four dogs showed no signs of illness to me. I

thought that they could have been monitored, " Cooling added.

Involved in animal rescue in Sri Lanka and Thailand since

1998, Cooling " has found U.K. homes for 40 dogs from Sri Lanka in

recent years, " Townsend and Davies wrote.

" Twenty cases of rabies have been reported in England and

Wales since 1946, which were all imported, " noted BBC News.

Britain requires a six-month quarantine of dogs imported from

nations with active rabies reservoirs. Because the Cooling case

occurred in a quarantine center, the rabid puppy had restricted

opportunity to infect others. But if the puppy had been quarantined

for two weeks before being flown to Britain, the entire incident

would not have occurred--at least not in Britain, Department of

Environ-ment, Food & Rural Affairs staff noted.

Two recent Belgian cases were not so well contained. Belgium

had not had a canine rabies case since 1999, and has been officially

free of canine rabies since 2001, but that status was jeopardized

after a family in the Brussels suburb of Beersel in July 2007

smuggled a four-week-old puppy home from a holiday in Morocco. The

puppy was euthanized in October 2007 after exhibiting rabies

symptoms. When she proved to be rabid, a second dog in the

household was also killed. The family received post-exposure

vaccination.

In March 2008, a Belgian woman who was on holiday in the

Republic of the Gambia rescued and smuggled home a six-month-old

puppy whom she found injured in a street. The puppy passed through

Dakar and spent time in France as well as Belgium, but apparently

did not bite anyone before showing rabies symptoms on April 16. She

died at a veterinary clinic on April 21, and was found to be rabid

on April 24.

" The delay between the vaccination of this dog and its entry

into Belgium and then France did not conform to the delay of one

month required by these countries, " noted Eurosurveillance.org,

published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

in Stockholm, Sweden. " The criterion of having had a rabies antibody

titre three months before entry into these countries was also not met

for this particular dog. "

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention was already

worried about accidental importation of rabies into the U.S.,

reported Susan Donaldson James of ABC News Internet Ventures in

October 2007.

In early 2007, James recounted, " a puppy from India got a

clean bill of health from officials at the Seattle-Tacoma

International Airport. Days later, at its destination in Alaska,

the dog was diagnosed with rabies, according to Washington's

Veterinary Board of Governors. In 2004, Los Angeles saw its first

case of rabies in 30 years, in a puppy imported from Mexico. In

Massachusetts, a dog imported from Puerto Rico was diagnosed with

the disease. "

Rescuers in the developing world are typically eager to move

puppies out of crowded shelters where delay increases the likelihood

of exposure to contagious ailments. Lacking quarantine facilities,

they often rely on vaccination and luck--but the shelters receiving

animals from abroad often lack adequate quarantine space themselves.

Rabies is only one of many diseases that are easily

accidentally imported before symptoms are evident--as Adirondack Save

A Stray, of Corinth, New York, recently found after accepting two

puppies from Puerto Rico.

" Both came down with serious cases of potentially deadly

parvovirus, " wrote Schenectady Gazette reporter Stephen Williams.

" Veterinarians said a quarantine after their arrival might have

prevented their getting sick after adoption. "

Responded Fiel, " In rescue, there are no guarantees. We're

rescuing animals. We're saving lives. "

Saratoga Springs veterinarian Charles Brockett, a regional

representative of the New York State Veterinary Medical Association,

told Williams that parvovirus takes a week to 10 days to incubate.

" The ethical thing would be to quarantine for 10 days, and eliminate

any doubt, " Brockett said.

Fiel objected that Adirondack Save-a-Stray is too small to

hold puppies in quarantine, if they can be adopted instead.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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