Covid in Pets; Pets & Cannabis and West Nile: The Next Pandemic in Wildlife to People AVMA Virtual Convention Offers Latest in Veterinary Issues

The AVMA Conference is coming up August 20-22, and Covid itself will be among the featured topics along with cannabis and its effect on pets; use in medicine; etc. New and current info can be found HERE. I'm happy to connect you with current and future AVMA Presidents Dr. John Howe (Covid) and Dr. Douglas Kratt (Cannabis) for comment. Note that the ASPCA reports an over 700% increase in hotline calls due to edible ingestion in pets.



Also, Among the speakers is Dr. Tracey McNamara, DVM, DACVP, who helped identify West Nile Virus when she worked at the Bronx Zoo and is now sounding the alarm on the need for more biosurveillance to detect impending disease outbreaks in animals before they spill over to humans.



While we're monitoring for Covid in both domestic animals and humans, Wildlife has gone unmonitored. There are outbreaks of West Nile in these animals that is becoming more of an issue and can spread to humans. There is very little research on this--and this could possibly be the cause of the next pandemic and a threat to many species. In spite of repeated wake up calls, dogs, cats, shelter animals, zoos and local wildlife, all species that can and have given early warning of emerging public health threats, continue to be left out of any formal surveillance in the United States