To Neil Garretson:
 
Neil, it would appear that there is some confusion with your interpretation
of the rabies article.  I too have seen this article, and maybe we can clear
it up...
 
>I was never aware of this but it seems as though it is common practice for
>many state agencies and vets to automatically euthanize a ferret when it
>bites a human (and the human complains) because unlike dogs and cats, the
>"shedding" period for rabies in domestic ferrets is not known...
 
You are correct here.  Most (but not all) localities require euthanasia of
ferrets affected in bite incidents because the only test that can be run on
an animal to check for rabies is performed on brain tissue.  We know that
dogs and cats have less than a 10-day period between when the secrete virus
in their saliva and when they show clinical signs.  What this means is that
if a dog or cat ddoesn't show clinical signs of rabies within 10 days of
biting a person, there is no way that the virus could have been shed.  While
most vets think it is the same case with ferrets, that a 10-day quarantine)
would work, many vets require the hard data, which is what this study is
trying to show.
 
>It seems that researchers at Kansas State University, with help from the
>CDC, are beginning to report their findings, and unfortunately the
>preliminary reports do not look all that good.  The article states that:
>"the major finding in this study is that the rabies virus was not
>isolated from the saliva of any infected ferret and was only detected in
>the salivary gland of a single animal."  Hopefully they will find a
 
Actually, the report is rather promising.  If the virus is not shed in the
saliva before the animal is showing signs, then the chance of a clinically
normal ferret giving rabies to a human following a bite is very remote.  The
point of the study was not to develop a new test for detecting rabies virus,
but to map out the timetable of infection.
 
>Are there not any other methods for detecting rabies, in ferrets and other
>mammals, than with this "shedding" technique?
 
No - there are no other tests for rabies except for the fluorescent antibody
test on brain tissue.  We can't pick up the virus in saliva.  Also, we can't
use a blood test, because the rabies virus never really goes into the
bloodstream - it travels through the body along the nerves, rather than in
blood cells like so man y other viruses.
 
Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP              Chief Pathologist, AccuPath
Dept. of Veterinary Pathology               [log in to unmask]
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 1543]