Anti-vax scares put pets at risk of fatal disease
HOUSEHOLD pets face devastating outbreaks of disease because “antivax” scares have pushed vaccination rates dangerously low, a leading veterinary body has warned.
The Federation of Companion Animal Veterinary Associations (FECAVA) said the UK dog and cat populations are losing their “herd immunity” thanks to conspiracy theories propagated online. Vaccine scepticism is a growing threat to human medicine, with baseless fears – for example that of links between jabs and autism – gaining traction since Andrew Wakefield published fraudulent research in The Lancet in 1998.
The theories are backed by celebrities, including Robert De Niro and Jim Carrey, and the World Health Organisation puts “vaccine hesitancy” among its top 10 threats to global health.
FECAVA now believes that the antivax movement, fuelled by social media, is pushing pet vaccination rates below the threshold at which small outbreaks of deadly conditions such as parvovirus and canine typhoid fever can be naturally contained.
The body cites figures from the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, indicating that 25 per cent of dogs – roughly 2.2million – no longer receive a primary course of vaccinations, a rise from 20 per cent in 2011. The rate for cats is worse: about 35 per cent are now
unvaccinated, compared to 70 per cent eight years ago. A population needs around 70 per cent vaccination take-up for herd immunity to take effect, whereby viruses are unlikely to spread and threaten unvaccinated animals.
Writing on The Telegraph website, FECAVA president Wolfgang Dohne says: “A growing minority of pet owners are suspicious of vaccination [and] this is similar to the anti-vaccination movement [among] parents. Pet owners now have a wealth of online resources at their fingertips to discover more about animal [health], but much of this can be misleading and is not based on scientific evidence.”
Parvovirus, which attacks puppies’ stomachs rendering them incapable of absorbing nutrients, is of particular concern to British vets.
Low pet vaccination rates also pose a risk to humans in the form of zoonotic diseases – those that can be passed from animal to human – such as leptospirosis (which becomes Weil’s disease in humans) and rabies.