Health experts say the medical records of cats and dogs could serve as an early warning system for diseases such as avian flu. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Health experts say the medical records of cats and dogs could serve as an
early warning system for diseases such as avian flu. The GLRC’s
Rebecca Williams has more:
The health records of thousands of dogs and cats throughout the country
are tracked by the National Companion Animal Surveillance Program.
Larry Glickman helped design the system. He’s an epidemiologist at
Purdue University. He says it was originally designed to track anthrax or
plague outbreaks in pets. Glickman says now, the system could be used
to monitor pets for avian flu symptoms.
“What we’re concerned with in the U.S is for example, a pet animal like a
cat will come in contact with a bird that is sick or even died of avian
influenza, then the cat will pick up that virus and will become infected,
and the very same day it might climb in bed with people and transmit
that virus to people.”
Glickman says the system can pinpoint areas where quarantines are
needed… to slow the spread of disease in both pets and people.
For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.