New rabies prevention rules for “rescue” puppy imports; HSUS squawks

CDC crackdown might encourage more overseas vaccination & s/n work,  but may mean fewer photo-ops

WASHINGTON D.C.––Pandering to the “rescue” community,  including publicity stunt “rescues” by the Humane Society of the U.S. itself,  instead of looking toward the greater good of dogs both in the U.S. and abroad,  HSUS president Kitty Block and Sara Amundson,  president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund,  on May 9,  2024 for the second time in nine months urged their respective memberships to oppose Centers for Disease Control & Prevention rules that plug the major leak through which canine rabies has entered the U.S. in the present century.

Twanging heartstrings

Block and Amundson twanged an off key duet on donors’ heartstrings in reiterating their position.

Their joint appeal began by evoking “A soldier seeking to bring home a dog befriended while serving abroad. The diplomatic or military family leaving for or returning home at the conclusion of an overseas assignment.  The traveler who fell in love with a dog in an animal shelter or rescue station in another country,”  all relatively rare cases.

Only then did Block and Amundson mention “The animal organization seeking to transport dogs” from abroad to the U.S.

This is typically done to bolster adoption and “live release” rates while American kennels are otherwise filled with unadoptable pit bulls.

The Humane Society of the U.S.,  however,  does not operate any dog-and-cat animal shelters.  HSUS puppy imports are typically done as photo-ops for fundraising appeals.

“Dumb rabies” & dumber advice

“Starting August 1 this year,”  Block and Amundson warned,  soldiers,  diplomats,  and travelers with dogs “are just some of the people and animals who could be adversely affected by a new federal rule on the importation of dogs from other countries to the U.S.

“Issued by the Centers for Disease Control,  it prohibits entry for any dog less than six months old,”  Block and Amundson lamented.

Why?  Because dogs under six months of age still have immature immune systems,  meaning that they cannot be effectively and consistently immunized against rabies.

Moreover,  dogs under six months of age can harbor “dumb rabies,”  meaning that symptoms may not appear for months––and might emerge,  after months of apparent normal behavior,  even though a dog has been vaccinated.

Premature & ineffective vaccination

These are not rare events.  Premature vaccination and ineffective vaccination due to failure to keep vaccines cold prior to use,  especially in hot southern hemisphere climates with unreliable electricity to run refirgerators,  continue to confound rabies vaccination programs in most of the 109 “high risk” or “rabies endemic” nations that the Centers for Disease Control has put off limits as sources of imported puppies.

Block and Amundson acknowledged that the prohibition on puppy imports from the 109 nations in question “was already a rule for commercial dog imports under the U.S. Department of Agriculture,”  accounting for about 10% of the million-plus dogs brought into the U.S. per year.

Most of the remaining dogs brought to the U.S. are imported as personal pets.  Imports of “personal pet” dogs have surged so much in the early 21st century,  however,  that observers from the “rescue” community to the regulatory sector suspect half or more of these “personal pets” are actually “rescues” imported for adoption.

Puppy millers have a beef

Commercial dog breeders and sellers,  not surprisingly,  have long vocally resented “rescuers” they perceive as competition getting away with less regulatory supervision of their imports.

Reality,  though,  is that regardless of the pecuniary motivations and questionable integrity of the “puppy mill” sector,  irresponsible,  careless,  lazy,  and just plain unlucky “rescuers” have been responsible for importing multiple rabid dogs in recent years,  any one of whom could have reintroduced the canine rabies strain to the U.S.

“During 2020,”  according to CDC Division of Global Migration & Quarantine veterinarian Emily Pieracci,  “the CDC discovered more than 450 dogs arriving in the U.S. with falsified or fraudulent rabies certificates,  a 52% increase compared with the previous two years.”

At least one of those dogs,  brought from Azerbaijan,  proved to be actively rabid.  That was after three rabid “rescue” dogs arrived from Egypt between 2015 and 2019.

Best way to stop canine rabies is to keep it out

The canine rabies strain was declared extinct in the U.S. in 2007,  after a six-decade eradication effort.

The two most recent human deaths from canine rabies contracted within the U.S. were a seven-year-old girl,  bitten by a rabid dog in Texas in June 1979,  and a 13-year-old boy who was bitten by a rabid dog in Kansas in 1968.

The new CDC puppy import rules are meant to keep hard-won success against rabies from eroding.

Continued Block and Amundson,  “Additional [CDC] requirements depend on where a dog is traveling from and whether the dog was vaccinated in the U.S.,  but could serve to present serious delays for those seeking to travel with dogs.  The [new]rule also requires that all dogs entering the U.S. be microchipped,  which may add an extra hurdle to families trying to flee crisis situations abroad with their pets.”

U.S. has a 55% rabies vaccination rate

The new CDC rule has been introduced,  however,  to prevent rabies crisis situations from emerging here.  That could result from just one dog with “dumb rabies” running amok at a crowded dog park,  before rabid symptoms emerge days or weeks later.

Currently the U.S. rate of canine vaccination against rabies is under 55%.  This is far below the minimum 70% vaccination rate necessary to prevent the spread of any contagious disease.

It is also far below the anti-rabies vaccination rate of 30 years ago,  before opposition to vaccination gained momentum as a political movement,  and before the emergence of COVID-19 coincided with both a surge in opposition to vaccination in general,  encouraged by former U.S. President Donald Trump,  and a marked increase in acquisition of dogs.

Climate change means rabies rules should be relaxed?!

“In the very near future and beyond,”  wrote Block and Amundson,  “there may be an increasing need for the U.S. to accommodate more animals arriving via rescue and individual adoption. Climate change and other factors are creating more emergency situations all over the world,”  Block and Amundson contended,  “which in turn create more animals in need of help,  rescue and adoption.  But this rule throttles the ability of rescue organizations to respond to that need.”

But no,  it does not.

Block as former president of the Humane Society of the U.S. subsidiary Humane Society International,  should know that first-hand.

Puppy imports are not cost-effective “help” for developing world

Rescue organizations––and individual rescuers––who really give a damn about helping more animals are aware that in most of the developing world dozens of dogs can be vaccinated against rabies,  and spayed or neutered,  for the cost of flying just one dog to the U.S. for adoption.

The outcome of spending $1,000 to vaccinate and sterilize street dogs in the developing world can be a city block,  marketplace,  or temple occupied by safe dogs,  presenting no life-threatening risk to either humans or other animals.

The outcome of spending $1,000 to fly a dog to the U.S. is nil wherever the dog comes from,  a feel-good for the “rescuers,”  and a dog who can be profitably rehomed to someone else seeking a feel-good.

Soi Dog Foundation was rare exception

To an extremely limited and diminishing extent,  dogs “rescued” from abroad can become ambassadors and fundraisers for overseas charities that do spend most of the money they raise on local vaccination and spay/neuter programs.

The Thailand-based Soi Dog Foundation,  for instance,  the first organization in the world to perform more than a million spay/neuter surgeries,  made promoting overseas adoptions part of a highly successful business model,  before the U.S. and other recipient nations tightened import rules in response to the arrival of rabid dogs imported by other “rescue” groups.

For every Soi Dog Foundation adoption to the U.S.,  however,  hundreds of dogs––especially puppies––have been driven over the border from rabies-endemic Mexico,  or flown from rabies-endemic nations to Canada,  then driven over the border from there.

Why not pivot from photo-ops back to work?

“Animal welfare organizations such as ours that save animals from disasters as well as from systemic cruelties will need to quickly pivot in order to ensure that our lifesaving work can continue for dogs in harm’s way abroad,”  blogged Block and Amundson.

But the only pivoting that any such organizations really need to do is back to work doing vaccination and sterilization where it really needs to be done,  all over the developing world,  instead of bringing dogs back to the U.S. a few at a time and then taking bows in appeals.

“We argued against the proposed requirement that travelers be able to document a dog’s travel history and whereabouts for six months prior to entry,”  Block and Amundson testified,  “even if the dog was not coming from a country deemed high risk for rabies by the CDC,”  such as Canada.

Oh Canada!

Reality,  though,  is that Canada in particular has become a conduit for rescuers funneling rabid dogs into the U.S.,  regardless of the virtuous intent and insouciance of the culprits.

Reported Amina Zafar of CBC News on October 28,  2023,  “When two dogs imported to Canada from Iran on separate occasions in 2021 developed deadly canine rabies, alarm bells rang loudly for public health officials.  They scrambled to trace dozens of people who may have been in contact with the animals’ saliva to give preventive treatment before it was too late.

“The quick action staved off what could have become a fatal disease in at least 60 people, including the dogs’ foster and adopted families,  their friends,  and staff at several veterinary clinics across Ontario,”  Zafar said.

The first case involved a three-month-old puppy who was not quarantined on arrival,  having been declared a “personal pet.”

Puppy developed rabies seven months after import

“The pup had no known exposure to wildlife carriers in Canada,”  Zafar said.  “Seven months after arriving,  however,  the puppy developed neurological signs and was eventually euthanized.”

Emphasized Scott Weese,  an infectious disease specialist for the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph,  dogs “can incubate rabies for quite a long period,”  far longer than normal quarantines.

Most rabid dogs will display symptoms within ten days to two weeks,  but the major risk comes from the “dumb rabies” cases who do not.

Rules relaxed for dogs from Ukraine

Both Canada and the U.S. widened the gaps allowing rabid dogs to be accidentally imported by relaxing the rules for dogs coming from Ukraine,  a known high-risk country for canine rabies,  on “compassionate grounds” after the Russian invasion of February 24,  2022.

But concern about rabid dog imports was whetted,  meanwhile,  by the CDC discovery that a rabid dog brought from Egypt to Virginia in 2015 came with a falsified rabies vaccination certificate.

Rabies from Egypt

Then,  on February 25, 2019,  “rabies was diagnosed in a dog imported from Egypt, representing the third canine rabies case imported from Egypt in four years,”  the September 25,  2020 edition of CDC Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report detailed.

Among them,  all alarming,  the 2019 case came closest to producing a widespread catastrophe.

“On January 28,  2019,”  the CDC said,  “26 dogs arrived at the Pearson International Airport in Toronto,  Canada,  from Cairo,  Egypt.”

Going to Kansas City

One day later,  “The dogs were driven from Canada to the Kansas City metropolitan area through Port Huron, Michigan,”  by personnel from “a pet rescue organization in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

“Upon entry into the United States,  all 26 dogs had certificates of veterinary inspection,  rabies vaccination certificates, and documentation of serologic conversion from a government-affiliated rabies laboratory in Egypt,”  the CDC continued.

“The dogs’ documentation was reviewed by Canadian authorities,  the United States Border Patrol,  and the Kansas Department of Agriculture,  and met entry requirements.

“The dogs were immediately adopted or fostered by persons in Kansas and Missouri upon arrival.”

Developed rabies a month after arrival

“On February 20,  2019,”  a month after arrival,”  the CDC recounted,  “a fostered two-year-old dog from this cohort developed polydipsia [excessive thirst],  polyphagia [extreme,  insatiable hunger],  and diarrhea. The next evening, [the dog] began vomiting, ingested a blanket,  and developed ataxia, hypersalivation,  and abnormal vocalization.”

Taken to a veterinary hospital,  the dog “displayed abnormal aggression and bit a technician.”

Transferred to a second veterinary hospital,  the dog “exhibited bilateral protruding third eyelids and on February 23,  2019 was observed biting at the air as if trying to catch a fly,  both of which are considered neurologic abnormalities consistent with rabies virus infection.

Survivors quarantined

“The dog continued to decline,”  becoming “laterally recumbent,”  and developing “increased aggression.”

At last suspecting rabies,  veterinary staff euthanized the dog on February 24,  2019,  five days after rabid symptoms emerged.

The Kansas State University Rabies Laboratory confirmed the rabies infection a day later.

On March 1,  2019,  the CDC matched the rabies strain to the virus from a rabid dog imported into Connecticut from Egypt in 2017.

The 25 surviving dogs from the transport were quarantined,  seven for four months,  because they “had serologic evidence of previous vaccination” before their vaccination for import into Canada and the U.S.,  and the rest for six months.

Why did vaccination fail?

“All 26 imported dogs had documentation of recent receipt of rabies vaccine from three different manufacturers,”  the CDC found. “These manufacturers confirmed that all vaccine products listed on the certificates were valid products based on lot numbers.

“It is not known,”  the CDC said,  “if the insufficiency of [the rabid dog’s] rabies vaccination was a result of inadequate vaccine potency related to improper storage and handling,  vaccination failure,  or fraudulent documentation.”

The bottom line,  the CDC emphasized,  is that “Each imported case of canine rabies virus represents a risk of reintroduction of the virus into the United States canine population and exhausts public health resources.

Rabies costs money as well as lives

“Each response to an imported dog with canine rabies virus is estimated to consume 800 hours in resources and cost nearly $214,000 in personnel time and post-exposure prophylaxis.  During this investigation,  an average of $9,290 was spent per person for post-exposure prophylaxis, excluding administration and examination charges,  totaling $176,510 for 19 persons who were recommended to receive post-exposure prophylaxis,  or $408,760 for all 44 persons who were given post-exposure prophylaxis” as a precautionary measure.

The CDC suspended dog importations from Egypt on May 10,  2019,  and except for allowing some dog imports from Ukraine on “compassionate grounds” in 2020,  has been tightening the dog import rules,  especially for puppies,  ever since.

            (See Mad Russians overrun Ukraine rabies belt; refugee canines flee west and Animal evacuations from Kabul & New Orleans echo Saigon & Katrina.)

Block and Amundson might most help the situation by escalating funding for anti-rabies vaccination and spay/neuter projects in rabies-endemic nations,  instead of trying to weaken rabies prevention rules that interfere with photo-ops.

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