The Covid-19 crisis has broken out, and science is overwhelmed, ashamed of its ignorance about a disease that has become a pandemic in just months. But he reacted quickly. Never before has so much research been done in such a short time. In those months (between April and July 2020), preprints circulated among scientists as well as journalists. Bold headlines multiplied, sensationalism fueled by fear and it didn’t matter that these articles weren’t peer-reviewed.
The dog’s role as a spreader of coronavirus was discussed in two cases in Hong Kong that tested positive. After that attention turned to cats, tigers and even a zoo lion And that’s when our greatest fear took hold: If felines behaved like vectors, how would we carelessly control millions of animals so close to humans?
Causative more cold sweats among vets this goes into a citizen who is already in shock. At that time, I was part of an animal covid-19 monitoring group created for this purpose within the General Council of Spanish Veterinary Colleges. My concern was the same as that shared by other members, many of whom were professors of microbiology.
Confirmed today Cats have no role in spreading the virus but if it were confirmed – something far from being – how would we approach?; Can you imagine agents in bioprotective suits breaking into homes at random or out of sheer suspicion to quarantine or sacrifice so many cats? Will they be able to recreate it and take it to the streets to control thousands of cat colonies? Do you remember what happened with the Ebola case and the Excalibur dog? It’s creepy just to think about it, but again, it’s scary because we haven’t been able to identify their owners, when they had them, neither the cats nor their location.
Law on Protection, Welfare and Responsible Ownership of Pets
Well, returning to the new normality we live in today, it seems like we still haven’t learned our lesson, even without losing sight of the pandemic. We spent more than five years debating, drafting one of the laws that would make its mark on the legislature. Pet Protection, Welfare and Responsible Ownership. The priorities of the project presented by Govern del Botànic are to ensure the welfare of animals considered “sensitive beings”, with special emphasis on the “extermination”, not the reduction, of abandonment and animal abuse, as well as “zero sacrifice. And for such a laudable aspiration, it will depend” It is said to be “one of the fundamental pillars”. “complete description” of all pets. However, when editing this, the project did not specify which species should be subject to mandatory definition (sic).
The arguments presented were of no avail, with the text reaching Les Corts with equal ambiguity. As far as we know with the changes, the clamor of veterinarians has echoed in other groups (undoubtedly more influential) and ferrets are included, but cats are not. Most likely, it shouldn’t be a threat, as some famous minds appreciate that felines aren’t taken for walks or usually leave the house (as if they didn’t run away, didn’t go out occasionally, didn’t have a large neighborhood population living within a few feet of group animals or humans). In times of inflationary crisis, this and this definition was an “unnecessary” expense. because Animal welfare is easy to sell, but another thing is the cost of securing it.
The truth is, it’s not hard to sense that another zoonosis may come, in which a pet can act as a donor, as is feared by covid. It is known that 75% of the emerging diseases are actually of animal origin.. But there’s no need to speculate, because there are public health reasons as well as legal reasons to warrant a diagnosis of cats and ferrets.
Indeed, community regulations dictate that the date of administration of the anti-rabies vaccine should not be before the administration of the identity transponder. While it is necessary for dogs, cats and ferrets to be vaccinated against this virus in the community, their identification should also be necessary. In the same sense, it can be said: leishmaniasisIt is another zoonosis in which cats and ferrets act as a reservoir, most diagnosed by Valencian veterinarians, and the incidence in humans is increasing exponentially.
eliminate abandonment
if you want “Destroy” abandonment and punish abusehow not to extend obligation to microchip every animal To take advantage of a system that lets you identify and find your legal representative in just a few hours? Of course, not to mention the value of the health information (vaccines, deworming…) this little semiconductor provides…
Practically all autonomies that encourage such reform have passed laws in this direction. Madrid, Catalonia, Murcia, Rioja, Navarra and Castilla La Mancha have already done this with dogs, cats and ferrets; Andalusia and Asturias extended dog to cat identity and our neighboring countries – France and Portugal – also need microchipping and registration of three species.