If you have a dog as a pet, you'll need to pay attention to our next story - but if you're squeamish, you might want to take a little break form the news . The vet association of Belize is reporting that there's an outbreak of canine distemper. It's a viral condition which started appearing at clinics in October. It's a concern because it could kill your dog or puppy. The Animal Medical Center in Belize City has seen close to 40 cases since October and they told us what you should look out for.
Jane Crawford, veterinarian, Animal medical Center
"If they have a pet that hasn't been vaccinated or is not up to date on their vaccination, and they notice any respiratory disease, any coughing, sneezing, runny nose, discharged from the eyes - those would be some of the first signs and symptoms that you would get from the disease. It starts like flu, flu like symptoms and from there it will progressed to more serious symptoms which could eventually lead to the death of the animal."
Samantha Scott, veterinarian, Animal medical Center
"Some dogs express the disease in different ways. Some eat but they just have maybe muscle twitching as well. So it all varies."
Jane Crawford, veterinarian, Animal medical Center
"Muscle twitching, the animals have difficulty to walk. They can move around as well and its most times fatal. There isn't a specific treatment for it, so we just treat the symptoms and most animals either they are euthanizing or they die. The virus is spread by contact, its airborne, so the dog will have the discharge. If you have another dog if they get in contact with the nasal discharge, if the animal is sneezing, its similar if you have a flu. So it will spread that way."
Samantha Scott
"If your dog is showing the signs, you need to contact your veterinarian and take your pet in. Need to be examine and we would confirm if it is."
And while distemper cannot be treated and often results in death, the best treatment is prevention - and that means a simple vaccine.
Jane Crawford, veterinarian, Animal medical Center
"The vaccine that include Distemper vaccine and then you have the rabies by itself. We have different vaccination protocol. We recommend that they get the first vaccination at 6 weeks of age, 9 weeks and 12 weeks and we are looking at maybes at 16 weeks as well and then after that on a yearly basiss. So once a year to curtail the disease."
The vaccine costs under 40 dollars and is widely available.
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