Canine Distemper in Florida - Page 1

 If you live in this area of Florida, you might want to know this:


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A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.promedmail.org>
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
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Date: Tue 16 Feb 2010
Source: The Gainesville Sun [edited]
<http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100216/ARTICLES/100219564/1002?p=1&tc=pg>


An increase in canine distemper infection in raccoons and foxes has
veterinarians worried that the disease could spread to pet dogs and to
shelters such as the operation at Alachua County Animal Services,
officials said.

Veterinarians fear a recurrence of a distemper outbreak that killed
more than 600 dogs in Alachua County 3 years ago. "We tested 5 sick
raccoons and one fox, and all of them came back positive for canine
distemper" said Julie Levy, director of Maddie's Shelter Medicine
Program at the University of Florida (UF), College of Veterinary
Medicine. "This is frightening because distemper is extremely
infectious to dogs and has a high fatality rate."

Hi Hodie They have closed the dog pounds down in Orlando a couple times since last year because they are over run with distemper they adopted out a bunch of dogs who came down with it later , its easy to vaccinate against one of my Vets said he had never seen a case in a dog who had even one vaccine against it....its kind of a third world type disease but stupid people don;t vaccinate so....     blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features_lifestyle_animal/2009/07/spca-shelter-euthanizes-40-dogs-after-distemper-outbreak.html

You are correct Lief about the problem with people not vaccinating. And when they do not do so, situations like this develop and it makes it even more difficult to eradicate diseases that should not exist.

Hi Hodie!   Its bad down here as far as diseases they have already issued rabies alerts this year because rabid racoons have been attacking pets not to mention all the feral cats are full of diseases

 I see many posts on an emerging infectious disease listserve that are about problems in Florida and other temperate climates where rabies is on the rise. Rabies specifically is a huge problem too at the moment in NYC Central Park area. But there are other diseases like distemper that are increasingly seen as well.

Take good care of you too Lief and be careful down there!