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MSD Animal Health has launched the Safe Journey campaign, as part of its Keeping Britain’s Pet Healthy initiative, and in preparation for the increase in pets travelling abroad during the summer holidays. Campaign resources have been developed for vets to increase awareness of the human and animal disease risks associated with travelling, and to encourage pet owners to seek advice from their vet.
Claire Gotto, Veterinary Advisor at MSD Animal Health comments: “With increasing numbers of pets travelling abroad1 and the risk of exposure to exotic diseases, we need to ensure Britain’s pets are protected by providing owners with advice on comprehensive preventative healthcare for their travelling pets. This is particularly important as pet travel legislation is primarily in place to protect human health, and pet owners may be unaware of the similar risks to their pets. As an industry, we should therefore be advocating preventative healthcare, in addition to the legislation, in order to protect not only individual travelling pets from exotic disease, but also the UK pet population as a whole.”
The current rules on pet travel are likely to remain in place for the summer of 2019, unless Brexit occurs prior to October. This means that cats, dogs and ferrets from the UK can still travel to all EU countries and some additional countries and return to the UK under the Pet Travel Scheme (PETS). As a precaution, however, if pet owners want to prepare for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit we would advise that they visit their vet at least four months before travel.
The risk of exotic disease to travelling pets was highlighted by the results of the Big Tick Project which showed that 76% of dogs travelling abroad returned with ticks2. This included Rhipicephalus sanguineus and Dermacentor reticulatus. Significantly, the Dermacentor tick was found to carry Babesia canis3 which highlights the real threat of dogs travelling to the Continent coming back with a tick carrying a potentially life-threatening pathogen. The fact that there have been recent cases of babesiosis4 within the UK in untravelled dogs really highlights this risk. Furthermore, this year there have been cases of leishmaniasis in untravelled dogs within the UK5.
The Safe Journey campaign provides pet owners and vets with educational materials on potential exotic disease risks abroad and the comprehensive preventive healthcare required to reduce these risks. These disease risks include Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, Rabies, Dirofilariasis (heartworm), Leishmaniasis, Leptospirosis and Echinococcus multilocularis (tapeworm).
Materials available include veterinary practice posters, social media material and leaflets for vets and pet owners, providing full details of the risks and need to prepare for travelling with a pet. For further information contact your MSD Animal Health account manager.
1 Wright (2019), Leishmaniosis, Veterinary Times, 21/01/19
2 Abdullah S, Helps C, Tasker S, Newbury H, Wall R. Ticks infesting domestic dogs in the UK: a large-scale surveillance program. Parasites and Vectors (2016) 9:391
3 Abdullah et al. Prevalence and distribution of Borrelia and Babesia in ticks feeding on dogs in the UK. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 32(1), 14-22. doi.org/10.1111/mve.12257
4 Fernandez de Marco et al. Emergence of Babesia canis in southern England. Parasites and Vectors (2017) 10:241
5 Wright I, Baker S. Leishmaniosis in a dog with no history of travel outside the UK. Veterinary Record (2019) 184, 387-388