US Dog-CoViD ???

'It's kind of a death sentence if we don't': Iowa veterinarian prescribes COVID-19 drug for mystery dog illness. A mysterious dog illness spreading across the United States is being treated with Paxlovid, the drug to treat COVID-19, by a Cass County veterinarian. 

@ejustin46

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Kate Pritchard

@KatePri14608408

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Replying to 

@KatePri14608408

Swain said the cases he has seen align with the illnesses reported symptoms nationwide, but unlike other places, he said many of the sick dogs around Cass County have not come in contact with other animals.

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Kate Pritchard

@KatePri14608408

·

7h

Replying to 

@KatePri14608408

Swain said the cases he has seen align with the illnesses reported symptoms nationwide, but unlike other places, he said many of the sick dogs around Cass County have not come in contact with other animals.

1

5

34

679

Kate Pritchard

@KatePri14608408

·

7h

Replying to 

@KatePri14608408

Swain said the cases he has seen align with the illnesses reported symptoms nationwide, but unlike other places, he said many of the sick dogs around Cass County have not come in contact with other animals.

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_5#Background[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_5#Background ;

Although the role of pangolins in the spread of COVID-19 was gradually being dismissed by scientists,^[16][17] several articles claimed that Chinese mink farms may have played a role in the emergence of COVID-19.^{[18][19][20][21][22]} In partnership with science journalist Yves Sciama, they conducted an investigation for Reporterre between November and December 2020.^[23][24][25] The day after, transmission of the virus from minks to humans, and mutations related to mink, were documented in the journal Science,^[26] which prompted the government to bring forward to the end of 2020 a ban on mink farming previously scheduled to go into effect in 2024.^[27] After the discovery in the Netherlands, the authorities in Denmark initiated a large-scale surveillance program of all mink farms in the country, with regular testing and genomic sequencing.^[28] The sequences of the Danish and Dutch mink-related viruses were deposited with the GISAID database.^[29] The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that cases of minks ill with COVID-19 had been documented in Utah in August 2020.^[30] Additional outbreaks have been detected in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Oregon.^[31] As of 29 November 2020, COVID-19 infections in mink have been reported in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United States.^[32][33]

Classification[edit]

In Denmark, there have been five clusters of mink variants of SARS-CoV-2; the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI) has designated these as clusters 1–5 (Danish: cluster 1–5). In cluster 5, also referred to as ΔFVI‑spike by the SSI,^[34] several different mutations in the spike protein of the virus have been confirmed. The specific mutations include 69–70deltaHV (a deletion of the histidine and valine residues at the 69th and 70th position in the protein), Y453F (a change from tyrosine to phenylalanine at position 453, inside the spike protein's receptor-binding domain), I692V (isoleucine to valine at position 692), M1229I (methionine to isoleucine at position 1229), and a non-conservative substitution S1147L.^[35][34][1]

Mink-related mutations that partially resemble the mutations discovered in Denmark, although part of a separate genomic group, are known from the Netherlands.^[26][36]

Implications for human health[edit]

On 5 November, BBC News reported that 12 cases of human infection with the cluster 5 variant had been detected.^[37] A week later, an ECDC rapid risk assessment report indicated that 214 mink-related human cases had occurred,^[36] however, few of these, if any, are believed to have been additional cases related to the Cluster 5 outbreak.^[38] By 20 November, no further human cases of the Cluster 5 strain were being detected despite widespread genetic sequencing which revealed 750 cases related to mink, and it was assessed that the Cluster 5 variant was no longer circulating in humans.^[39]

DJ-In short there has been spread from humans into minks and back ti humans of CoViD in Denmark.

Maybe some of the same (kind) of mutations may also be involved in human-to-dog (H2D) spread ?

If more is known of what kind of disease is detected in dogs it may be possible to look for more cases in more countries/species...

[url]https://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/2023/12/articles/animals/dogs/canine-infectious-respiratory-disease-update-dec-1-2023/[/url] or https://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/2023/12/articles/animals/dogs/canine-infectious-respiratory-disease-update-dec-1-2023/ ;

As we see more data, look at disease rates and locations, look at the patterns of increase and talk to more people about what they are seeing, I’m getting more convinced that this is a situation of the usual suspects (our normal CIRDC pathogens) doing their usual thing (mainly mild disease with a subset that get pneumonia and a subset that get really sick), but at a higher rate. I think the rate has been increasing for a while, which makes the normal ups that we see with waxing and waning disease more obvious. I think it’s clear that we’ve had true increases in disease in some areas, but not all, and that those clusters are following the typical ‘what goes up, comes down’ course. Media attention is amplifying things so that we’re hearing more about a lot of things we wouldn’t normally have heard about but there’s a true disease underpinning to those reports.

Why?

That’s unclear since we still don’t really know the ‘what’ well. However, when I think about what drives increased disease, I focus on dog factors and bug factors. We have various logical reasons why this could be driven largely by dog factors.

In the past few years, we’ve seen:

• More dogs
• Disrupted veterinary care (less vaccination)
• Changes in human activities (e.g. more remote work maybe leading to fewer dogs at day care and therefore fewer kennel cough vaccines)
• Changes in human activities that alter how dogs interact
• Changes in the types of respiratory disease vaccines we use
• Earlier pandemic restrictions reducing the normal level of exposure to kennel cough pathogens and vaccination

The net result would be an increase in dogs with less immunity from vaccination or previous infection.

For bug factors, we think about

• A new pathogen
• An existing pathogen that’s changed.

We don’t have any clear evidence of these.

The story about a previously unknown small bacterium that has been found by the New Hampshire vet diagnostic lab is still worth investigating but at this point, it’s not clear that it’s driving anything. If it turns out to be a pathogen in dogs, most likely this is a ‘new to us’ versus a ‘new’ scenario.

DJ, statistics may be a factor in this story. Dog owners projecting their worries on their (loved) dogs...