From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2011-06-18 19:39:50 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Re: Distemper vaccine ??
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
I wish that those who supply pet stores, the pet stores themselves, and the people who buy ferrets were more diligent about doing the full kit series; it is such an essential step for having sufficient protection, and shelters so often wind up with ferrets who never had the full series at the right time for the best levels of protection.
*IF* I recall right, Interferon is also a major part of the protocol which has saved three U.S. children and some elsewhere with rabies who did not not get rabies shots in time. I'll find some quick links but do not have time to go through them. Another little girl was pretty recently saved that way. For them comas were induced and then specific antiviral meds used.
Like rabies, distemper also grows in the brain.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hope-for-rabies-victims-unorthodox-coma-therapy-shows-promise
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-06-12/news/29649108_1_rabies-diagnosis-bat-bites-feral-cat
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/228337.php
Ah, it seems that my recollection on this was wrong:
> In 2004, American teenager Jeanna Giese survived an infection of rabies unvaccinated. She was placed into an induced coma upon onset of symptoms and given ketamine, midazolam, ribavirin, and amantadine.
The Vitamin A work (alone, but combining it with antiviral meds really makes sense) was done originally in Canada.
I wanted to include that in case any of the antivirals in that combination can be useful. (BTW, Ketamine, an anesthetic, can cause very frightened confusion in our cousins, the apes and people who are past a certain age, but she was young then. I do not know if that med can create similar problems in members of Carnivora but recall there was a time when people were wondering if it might make sense to not use it for adult bears, though I do not know what was eventually decided on that score.)
On Jun 18, 2011, at 12:44 PM, Kevin Farlee wrote:
> I'm writing up a fuller account, but I need to get my hands on a spreadsheet
> ...
>
> The highest correlation we can make at this time is that most of the ferrets
> coming into our shelter (as with many others) never completed their kit
> series. We have some rather dramatic stories of the difference this makes.
> In one particular instance, two cage-mates, one for which we have
> documentation of the full kit series, the other of which we do not. The
> ferret for which we do not have evidence of a complete kit series came down
> with distemper. We discovered him with full-blown symptoms - flushed skin,
> sticky-gummy eyes, etc. His cage-mate (who did get the kit series) was
> grooming his face. Think about it: There just isn't much higher level of
> exposure without injecting concentrated virus. That cage-mate never showed
> a symptom.
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)
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