It's hard to believe it's been 3 weeks since my last update. My
apologies to all as well as for the length of this post. But it
has been a very hectic and also very emotionally draining 3 weeks.
As of the 17th, FACT has lost a total of 12 ferrets to CD in
Connecticut: 11 were from the FACT shelter; 1 ferret that was exposed
in the home of an adopter. One ferret showing symptoms is still alive
with continual antibiotic and fluid support. Harry Potter aka Dex is
active and playful, but as soon as there is any backing off of the
support therapy, the symptoms start to return - much like Jenny
Peterson experienced as well as Washington. We are extremely hopeful
he will make it especially because his guardian has put her heart and
soul into his care and he is just a baby - less than 6 months old.
A total of 39 ferrets were exposed. 37 at the FACT shelter plus 2
ferrets in the adopters' home. Of those, 13 developed CD symptoms.
There was one other remotely possible exposure to another home with
several ferrets, but thankfully nothing developed. The ferret sent
there was only in the shelter room about 5 minutes before being removed
for "amorous assertiveness." He was an intact male just going into
season and was pulled out literally within minutes. Two ferrets died
from advanced adrenal disease and never showed any CD symptoms. One
ferret died of unknown causes without any symptoms before we even
suspected an illness in the shelter.
So the good news is that the 23 surviving ferrets have not shown any
symptoms to date and appear to be unaffected so far by the outbreak
which started almost 50 days ago.
Back tracking intakes and adoptions/fosters, we are pretty certain FACT
was exposed by one of either 2 ferrets that arrived from different
places on June 3rd. Unfortunately, because of the circumstances of
their arrival, we can't track back further from there.
FACT's board and our vets met last week to review all the data gathered
to date about the progress of the outbreak; treatments tried and
ongoing; as well as to determine next steps. For those who saw Dr.
Jerry Murray's comment in the small animal channel Canine Distemper
e-zine article, yes, FACT has been using a special therapy called
polyprenyl immunostimulant which with his help arrived and was started
for all exposed ferrets on the 7th of July. Treatment for the surviving
ferrets continues and we will be furnishing Dr. Murray with the health
information and data he and the manufacturer have requested.
We've been advised to give all the surviving ferrets a second round of
CD shots after which we need to wait 3 weeks before starting to get PCR
tests performed to determine our status. With luck we are hoping we can
reopen before Labor Day. Once we can get an all-clear and have all our
results, we will publish the data we have gathered. But here are a few
cursory observations.
Some ferrets that were up to date on their CD vaccine died. Actually
we had two pairs of ferrets with the same vaccination history (last
booster in Oct 2010 for 1 pair and March 2011 for the other). One of
each pair developed symptoms and died, while their surviving companion
never showed symptoms. Some ferrets that we knew were out of date by
over three years have yet to show symptoms. Maybe shelter stress is a
contributing factor?
Quarantines are essentially in-effectual. The first ferret with a
symptom also had a compromised immune system as he'd had surgery a
couple of weeks before coming to us. He didn't show symptoms until
almost 10 days post arrival. As he also was one of the 2 possible
"carrier" ferrets, he could have been exposed and shedding CD even
longer than that. In our adopter's home, her ferret did not show
symptoms for nearly 21 days after Harry Potter (Dex) arrived. The
other ferret is (fingers crossed) still symptom free.
The outbreak was the most aggressive in our shelter room with the
younger, more transient ferrets housed on the first floor. That is
were we lost the most ferrets. In our second floor which houses
predominately elderly, fostered and sick ferrets, we only lost 2 out
of the 11 ferrets housed there to CD. Both rooms were about equally
crowded. Luck? A more established environment? We will probably never
know but are grateful that so many did survive.
Until we can reopen, a number of surrenders have come to us and are
being housed in temporary quarters. Though those are already beginning
to fill up fast as summer draws to a close. If any CT area homes can
take in one, two or three ferrets on a temporary basis for at least 6
weeks, hopefully not much longer, please let me know. If needed we can
probably pull together a cage or two for housing. What we've tried to
do is match give-ups geographically with temp homes.
Once again, we sincerely appreciate the emotional support we've
received to date as well as the kind donations of supplies and funds
that have been sent. We have kept up with acknowledgements on an almost
daily basis, so if for any reason you did not receive one, please let
me know immediately.
We are by no means out of the woods though holding our own at this
time. We don't have a final tally on the financial side, as we are
still working on what the PCR tests will cost and still have more bills
arriving. Again, Washington has come to the rescue as they found a
reasonably priced source. A huge thanks to Kevin, Vondelle and Debbie
for their advice and support as well as for the supplies they so
willingly shared!
We have also been blessed with a extremely dedicated team of volunteers
who pitched in to help care for all the ferrets even before they were
sure exactly what they had to do to protect their ferrets at home. That
took great courage and commitment - and lots and lots of personal
laundry, shoe changes, soap and showers.
Ann Gruden
Ferret Association of Connecticut
[Posted in FML 7131]
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