Things have been quiet over the past few days. That’s good news (but always makes me a bit antsy, because I want to be sure it’s because there are no new cases vs we’re just not finding them). Documented infections have been confined to one region, with the exception of a dog that travelled out of the area, and which is (hopefully) being kept under quarantine for 28 days at its new location. We’re still testing and getting negative results, and veterinarians in the area are still looking out for potentially infected dogs, so hopefully the situation is being contained. The next week or so will tell us more, as we continue to test and as initially infected dogs start to eliminate the virus.

At a minimum, we want to go 35 days or so after the last new infection before we say we might be in the clear again. Since some dogs can shed the virus for over 3 weeks, I use 28 days as the upper end of the shedding period. I then tack on an additional week, since it takes some time for a newly exposed dog to get sick and be tested. So, if our last known dog was infected Oct 23 (to pick a random but reasonable date), it could shed until Nov 20. Add on a week, and we get to Nov 27. If there are no new cases by then and we still have excellent surveillance by vets and dog owners, we would suspect that the virus has again been contained. If we find any new cases, the clock restarts each time. (I hesitate to write about containment at this point because it sounds like I’m inviting bad luck, but I get a lot of questions about this).

To contain the current cluster of canine influenza we need:

• Continued diligence by veterinarians and dog owners
• Continued testing of exposed dogs and any other suspected cases
• Compliance with quarantine recommendations so infected dogs don’t pass on the flu to other dogs

So far, so good, but time will tell.