Ebola Spread to Dogs? - Page 1

Ebola could now spread to dogs? Could a canine vaccine be the key?
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/10/08/ebolas-victims-may-include-dog-in-spain/20974372/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D542165

Ebola's victims may include a dog named Excalibur. Officials in Madrid got a court order to euthanize the pet of a Spanish nursing assistant with Ebola because of the chance the animal might spread the disease.

This is what the Harvard people needed ... people who could pay for a vaccine! Pet owners!

That is one that could really go either way.  If it turns out that dogs could spread it then they could be hailed as heros taking extra caution save countless lives.  If not then it is highly an over reaction.  And they end up looking like scared idiots.  Where does it stop?  Kill everything that could potentially carry the virus?

Wow.  I know nothing about the virus, but to think a human illness can cross to canine and back.

Whole new level of scary.

The article I read about this said it would be much easier for the virus to spread from non-human primates, as they are genetically more similar to humans. OTOH, it's my understanding that Ebola can be transmitted by rats, which (obviously) are NOT all that genetically similar to humans.

The article also said dogs HAD tested positive for the virus, but showed no symptoms of infection. In medical terms, that's the perfect definition of a carrier that can pass the virus to susceptible hosts! (Think Typhoid Mary...she appeared perfectly healthy, but was transmitting the virus to others.)  :(

Fawn, Ebola is zoonotic disease....so it actually starts with an animal host, so back to an animal from human is logical....the virus had to mutate to infect people to begin with, then mutate again to go human to human.

Ok, way too much info and a scary vision.  Curse my very vivid imagination.  

 

Thanks for the info.  Not a chance my dogs are going to Dallas anytime soon (reports of human cases there).

LOTS of diseases/parasites/protozoa spread from animal to human and back...zoonotic...google it. 

Fawn, aside from the man who died this morning, are there other "cases" you heard of.

I do not remember much, but I think there was 2-3 either suspected cases or confirmed.   I will try to find the article 

 

In Dallas?