Friday, December 18, 2015

Importing Rabid Dogs?


A rabid dog was imported to the US from Egypt, the fourth time in the last 11 years that a rabid dog in known to have been imported to the United States.

The Center for Disease Control CDC) reports that:
This dog was part of a large shipment of dogs and cats from Egypt that rescue organizations had distributed to multiple states for adoption. During the investigation, public health officials learned that the rabies vaccination certificate used for entry of the rabid dog into the United States had intentionally been falsified to avoid exclusion of the dog from entry under CDC's current dog importation regulations.

The dog was imported with an unhealed fracture of the left forelimb, along with her puppy, and developed signs of rabies shortly soon after arriving at its new home in Virginia (my home state), triggering a six-month quarantine for four other Egyptian dogs that were placed in New Jersey. In Virginia, 30 people were evaluated for rabies exposure, and 18 chose to undergo rabies prevention treatment just in case. Also put at potential risk were the eight other dogs at the rabid dog's new home, along with nine other animals, and an additional dog the owner was pet-sitting.

The most alarming part of the CDC report reads:
CDC's cat importation regulations do not require that cats be vaccinated against rabies; therefore, the cats were not required under federal regulations to be confined, vaccinated, or revaccinated against rabies.

4 comments:

PipedreamFarm said...

I've been wondering why people see the need to bring in rescues from other countries when we are still euthanizing so many relinquished or abandoned dogs & cats born in the USA?

lil_ass_kicker said...

Importing rescue dogs seems like a bad idea. That nasty dog flu that is now a fact of life among the shelter population in Chicago apparently came over with a rescue dog from China. An attempt at saving a few Chinese strays had now made dog rescue in Chicago vastly more expensive and difficult than it ever was before.

Viatecio said...

So does this mean, now that we are importing strays (with potential behavioral and medical issues with which most APO is not at all prepared to handle) from other parts of the world to adopt out, can we start promoting responsible breeding again? Obviously our overpopulation issues are solved and there are no more unwanted dogs locally. Looks like we've done all we can with the whole "Spay/Neuter until there are none" drive, because now there are none left locally, right? (/sarcasm, for the uninitiated...)

From potcakes in the Bahamas and Afghani/Iraqi dogs to meat dogs from eastern Asia and village strays rounded up before the Olympics in Sochi....oh wait, and don't forget dogs brought in from other parts of our own glorious country, like the litter of pit bulls imported from Oklahoma that brought the parvo train to a shelter in my town.

I don't want ANY of them as a personal pet. Bleeding-Heart Rescuer can take them all, rehab them behaviorally (if they can TAME them first), medicate/vaccinate them for whatever diseases and parasites are there, and do it all on their dime. Other people can donate to that cause. I will stick with either paying for (no, not "adopting" because I am paying $$; that is called PURCHASING or BUYING) a pre-owned adult dog I see fit from resources I deem appropriate, or buying a puppy from a breeder with health- and temperament-tested working stock and a contract I am willing to sign.

Oh wait, Freedumb and 'Murica, right?

PBurns said...


A couple of points:

Rabies is endemic in the US. We have it all over, and I mean EVERYWHERE. Not too many rabid dogs dues to vaccination, but importing rabies from a dog a little less serious that the diseases brought into the US every day by tourists stepping off of airplanes.

Just as there are Xeno-phobes, who fear the foreign, there are Xeno-philes, who love the foreign. The phenomenon is old; folks helping on the other side of the world when there are people and situations needing help much closer to home. Folks are looking to tell a story about THEMSELVES that sounds special and exotic. The fact that people build a school on the other side of the world does not mean we have good school here, and more than helping a refugee in Namibia means no one needs help here.