RABIES AND DOG IMPORTATION.

Dog breeders and pet lovers and owners have been warned continuously of dangers associated with dog importation.The breeders are supposed to ensure the dogs get the necessary vaccinations before they are sold and shipped off, but some mischievous breeders/puppy mill merchants dont vaccinate these pets thus exposing the pet lovers to a risk.The pets that are shipped branding certificates are often times discovered to be fake, thus strict documentation laws must be ensured and vaccination records verified to ensure safety. There has been cases of shipping off animals to other countries which were incubating various pathogens, a recent case is the rabid dog shipped to the US from Egypt (as reported by STAT http://www.statnews.com/2015/12/17/rabies-dog-cdc/) The rabid dog was transported into the country in May by an animal rescue organization. It was later discovered the dog’s rabies vaccination certificate was a fake, CDC officials said .It’s the fourth time — that officials know of — in the last 11 years that a rabid dog has been imported to the United States. Ten people who had substantial contact with the animal were advised to get post-exposure rabies treatment and eight more involved in its importation opted to get vaccinated as a precaution, CDC and state health department officials wrote in a report on the incident published in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a journal operated by the CDC.‘There’s no shortage of adoptable dogs in the US’ Dr. Nicky Cohen said the CDC issued guidelines last year to spell out what is needed, from a rabies control standpoint, to import companion animals to the United States. Chief among them: an authentic rabies vaccination certificate. It also pointed out some red flags to look for on rabies vaccination certificates to spot fakes — things like multiple dogs in a shipment having identical certificates or evidence that a dog’s name has been whited out. “It’s pretty basic,” Cohen admitted. “There have been four incidences where rabid dogs have been imported. But we do know that more dogs than just these four have been imported with falsified records. This was issued in response to the recognition of imported dogs with falsified vaccination records.”The dog from Egypt was part of a shipment of eight dogs and 27 cats. It was the only animal in the shipment that was infected.