Antibiotics

Antibiotics were discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming – the first of which was penicillin in 1928. To me, this wasn’t actually that long ago relative to the fact that the Ancient Egyptians used mouldy bread on wounds to heal them. However, due to Fleming’s discovery of these amazing new drugs, overuse ensued and now medics and vets are trying to prevent the side effects – resistant strains of bacteria.

Brachycephalic dogs

Recently, at my placement at my local vets, I saw a beautiful French Bulldog come in for routine vaccinations. I knew vaguely about the health implications of this breed through reading articles etc but I wondered about what the implications and the scale of the problem actually is. You may not have heard the term ‘Brachycephalic’ before but you would certainly know what I mean when I say a squashed faced dog (in case you don’t, think of the skull shape of pugs etc). Brachycephalic dogs are, at the moment, ‘fashionable’. The fact that these dogs are popular have meant that cases of abandonment have arisen recently, for example in Wimbledon where a pug puppy was left with a note reading ‘Free pug xxx’. An even worse case in Essex involved a pug having to be euthanised after being thrown out of a moving car. It is believed that the bitch had been used for breeding as there was evidence that she had carried several litters and had then been cast aside after she could no longer produce puppies.

H5N8 Avian Flu

Bird Flu is back in the UK. DEFRA raised the risk level of it to high on the 21st December 2016 and it has been found in Carmarthenshire, then Lincolnshire and now in North Yorkshire. Before us there had been outbreaks in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and Nigeria. As a result, scientists already fear that Bird Flu is among our wild birds and that it will be around and dangerous for some time. Therefore, the BVA urges vets and bird keepers to remain vigilant. In the UK, a 3 kilometre protection zone and a 10 kilometre surveillance zone have been put in place around the infected premises – on which all remaining infected animals were culled. These zones are supposed to limit disease spread, along with a full investigation to determine the source. There has been a prevention zone in place since the 6th of December, which has now been extended to the 28th of February. This zone requires bird keepers to separate them from wild birds by using suitable housing (if they are brought inside they will still be classed as free range), netting and disinfectant. This statement worried me. The Government are rightly blaming wildlife for disease spread, but perhaps this disease may come to mirror Bovine Tuberculosis in the future? Infected wild birds can easily spread the disease around the country and abroad through their saliva, nasal secretions, faeces or even just by contaminating surfaces with the virus. However, no one knows what the cause of this strain is, or what the involvement of wild birds actually is, but experts say it is ‘no surprise’ we now have it here, after all of the cases in Europe. Luckily (for humans), Public Health England say the risk of this strain to public health is very low (although there are two other strains which can affect us – H5N1 and H7N9) and bird flu doesn’t pose a risk to food safety, even when eating infected carcasses – this was certainly a worry as a Turkey farm in Lincolnshire was affected just before Christmas! This was a relief for farmers who would not be able to afford the losses over their busiest time of year.

Fistulated cows

I was taken aback when I first discovered a fistulated cow. A fully functioning cow… with a hole drilled into it’s side. This brought back many memories of vet programs showing a displaced abomasum operation, with the cow standing, chewing the cud, a surgeon’s hands moving one of it’s four stomachs about.