“We have absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, proof that a foreign animal disease has been imported into the U.S.,” Dr. Ed Dubovi said. “I don’t think anyone can look at this situation and say we’re protecting our animal population the best we can.”
An estimated 1,300 dogs have been afflicted. The virus is blamed for at least six canine deaths.
Dubovi, a Cornell University professor with a master’s degree in virology and doctorate in microbiology, is one of the nation’s leading experts on canine influenza. It was at Cornell’s Animal Health Diagnostic Center, which Dubovi directs, that the first influenza virus known to infect dogs was isolated, in 2004. The pathogen was an influenza A virus subtype H3N8, a different strain from the one now circulating in the Midwest. The diagnostic discovery stemmed from research conducted at the University of Florida on a novel respiratory disease that had felled racing greyhounds.
H3N8 has since spread across the United States much like flu viruses in humans — via direct contact with infected aerosolized respiratory secretions and contaminated objects.
H3N2 is traveling much the same way. According to Dubovi, the virus is closely related on a molecular level to strains that are circulating in Chinese and South Korean dog populations. H3N2 canine flu emerged in that region in the mid-2000s. Like dogs, cats are susceptible. There is no evidence that this particular H3N2 subtype can be transmitted to humans (though other strains do infect humans).
Dubovi said he’s had an eye on H3N2 since 2008, when he read about it in scientific literature out of South Korea. The virus, he suspects, might have been imported via an infected dog from Asia.
“My concern all along was that someday this virus might make its way here,” he said. “We don’t know how it happened, but it certainly could have come from a dog or a cat. There are multiple international groups who are rescuing dogs from the meat market in Korea and shipping them into the U.S., and we have sketchy quarantine requirements if any at all. Restrictions on the movements of companion animals across borders are somewhat nonexistent.”
Hand some lawsuits out to these pet import companies; enough to clear their profits from the books.
Still importing exotic plants and animals and bringing in the pests and parasites that come with them just like they did on these islands bringing in those damn rats and snakes that are devidating the bird colonies there
“devidating” I think you meant to say devastating, but that’s OK. Point taken. Take Australia and the mice,rats,and cane toads. We really have to rid the world of do-gooders. Or smoke more pot,right Emerey?
Flu is a simple business.
Pigs in China and nearby countries eat the shit provided by various
sources that is left behind in drained, harvested, rice paddies.
Viri mutate in the pigs and then spread a new deadly or innocuous
variant depending on the roll of the dice.
Indeed. It would be a real shame if some of the animal “rescue” operations got themselves sued in a gigantic class-action lawsuit.
You can’t sue the government for failure to provide services, but you -can- sue a private company or a “charity”.
I would love to see these bleeding heart bunny huggers dragged onto the carpet and forced to confront the costs of their actions. It would be Justice.
I’d love to know whose brainchild it was to allow the importation of pythons into North America. They’re going to soon take over the Everglades if they already haven’t. And why oh why are we importing abandoned dogs when we are euthanizing thousands here? I wish they would exert the same energy on finding homes for orphans. Seems that dogs are more important than people. Where’s the chant “It’s for the children” now? I guess dogs are the new children as people seem to drag them everywhere, unheard of 30 – 40 years ago.
I think you will find the HORSE FLU vax they used in the early 2000s used a combo of horse dog and far too many other strains in the brew the fact greyhounds succumbed is a dead giveaway as they race at tracks horses shedding live virus were raced. I did have the details but its years ago and 3 or more pcs past. it IS on record somewhere and the trains mixed were bloody insane as I saw at the time.
as Dog parvo suddenly broke out in the early 80s when not prior an issue?
and what did the CAT parvo vax carry and share? yup.imported animals got through blood etc tests and quarantine, something like that would show up in the months theyre isolated. You want to create a mutation paradise? just cram a pile of pigs chooks or cows into a small area stress them and feed them crappy pelletised food GMO corn and a gutful of hormones and ABiotics. then add a slew of vaccines to really add some danger to the mix. bingo!