Quality of the Light: Dog flu, not to worry

Recently, I've heard a lot of talk about dog flu and the internet seems to be filled with some disturbing but fundametally incorrect information. Below is an excerpt from a recent CDC teleconference on the issues surrounding dog flu. You should read the complete transcript to get all the details, but basically the message is not to worry and act with common sense.

Media Briefing on Canine Influenza
Note: This is a verbatim transcript. There may be errors.

Monday, September 26, 2005
2:00 p.m.

-a portion of the transcript-

MR. SKINNER: Thanks, Dr. Donis. Now, I'll turn the call over to Dr. Cynda Crawford from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, who will spend three or four minutes sort of giving us the big picture in regards to canine influenza in the veterinary community.

DR. CRAWFORD: Thank you. And I would like to underscore what Dr. Donis has already pointed out and on a couple of occasions that this is a newly emerging pathogen in the dog population. And we have managed to accumulate quite a lot of information on this new canine influenza virus over a relatively short period of time, and this was largely due to the multi-institutional collaborative work that has involved numerous people from the CDC Influenza Branch. I would like to thank Dr. Donis and Dr. Jackie Katz, and Dr. Alexander Klimov. And it involves colleagues at the University of Wisconsin's College of Veterinary Medicine and at Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine, and, of course, Dr. Ed Dubovi at Cornell, who has been the biggest key I think in discovery of this new viral pathogen in the dog population.

And with regard to what veterinarians will be interested in knowing is that this virus can cause a respiratory disease that mimics a syndrome that we call kennel cough.

Now, kennel cough is just a syndrome, and it can be due to a myriad of infectious agents--bacteria as well as viruses. So the most common cause of kennel cough has been a bacterium called bordetella bronchiseptica and with information that we have to date, this still may be the most common cause of respiratory infection in dogs.

So the canine influenza virus is really the new kid on the block for veterinarians to consider in their differential diagnoses for kennel cough. They should consider canine influenza if a dog presents to them with a cough. They may have a nasal discharge and a fever also.

And because kennel cough really is an infectious disease, and it's a contagious disease regardless of the cause, whether it's bordetella bronchiseptica or canine influenza virus or other viruses, these dogs should be handled with some precautions, precautions that veterinarians normally use when they are treating a patient that has a potential infectious disease that is contagious to other dogs. So this type of precaution would involve the isolation of the respiratory disease or at least protection of other dogs in their clinics, while this particular dog with respiratory disease is undergoing diagnosis and treatment and potentially hospitalization.

I'll also stress that despite the rumors that are out on the Internet and other such sources, this disease is not as deadly as people want to make it. Although it's a new pathogen in dogs and nearly all dogs are susceptible to infection based on our knowledge about the virus to date, about 80 percent of them will have a mild form of disease, just characterized by cough and maybe some nasal discharge that will resolve over time with appropriate therapy.

Only a minority of dogs, a small number of dogs, experience complications such as pneumonia, just like the humans infected with influenza, certain populations of humans are more prone to development of pneumonia. And it's a small number of humans compared to everyone else.

So that is the same with canine influenza virus. It's a small population of dogs that will develop complications, most likely bacterial complications and these dogs do need to be--have their treatment supervised by a veterinarian.

In addition, since not all dogs will show a clinical syndrome, showing that they have a respiratory infection, there is a minority that are infected with the virus, but will not show clinical signs to announce to everybody that "I am sick." And it is very difficult to find these dogs in the dog population. And we're working on a more rapid means of identification.

And lastly, I want to emphasize most of all that this is not the deadly virus that certain sources have played it up to be.

We have a very low mortality rate. And this is a disease that I would characterize as one of high morbidity and low mortality. Thank you

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