For the first time in almost 70 years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is seeking to revise dog import regulations in an effort to keep dog rabies virus out of the country.
Rabies is known for mutating to match the animals it infects. The strain most specific to dogs has not been seen anywhere in the United States since 2004 and was declared to be eliminated throughout the nation in 2007. Being a canine rabid-free country means that dogs may still become infected from rabid wild animals like raccoons, skunks or bats, but they won’t catch dog-specific rabies from another dog.
Specifically, the CDC wants all dogs brought into the United States to have a microchip, be at least six-month of age, have proof of rabies vaccination, and have adequate serologic test results from a CDC-approved laboratory, among other requirements.
The federal health agency also proposes to require that all dogs arriving from any country, including the ones returning to the United States after traveling abroad, be microchipped prior to travel into the United States.
“The microchip information would be included on importation documents to help ensure that dogs presented for admission are the same dogs as those listed on the rabies vaccination records,” the CDC explains. “Microchips are already used globally and required for importation in many DMRVV-free countries.”
Requiring microchip implants will also “promote greater confidence” in the information recorded on the rabies vaccination records, the CDC added, noting that there have been several cases of importers showing records of vaccinated dogs that became ill or died before travel as the vaccination records for dogs that didn’t have proper veterinary paperwork.
Cats are not required to have proof of rabies vaccination, and CDC is not proposing new changes relating to the importation of cats.
The proposal comes as the CDC said it would extend a suspension of dog imports from countries classified as high risk for rabies. The suspension, which was first issued in July 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, will remain in effect through the end of July 2024.
Millions of American households adopted a pet dog during the pandemic. Even President Joe Biden adopted a German shepherd puppy. The CDC said many of those animals are from foreign countries.
“The significant increase in the number of dogs from DMRVV high-risk countries arriving with incomplete, inadequate, or fraudulent rabies vaccination documentation observed in 2020 and 2021 coincided with increased interest in purchasing dogs from the international rescues and breeders during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the agency noted.
Cases of human rabies infection in the United States are very rare, with only 1 to 3 cases reported each year. There have been less than 100 human rabies deaths documented by the health authorities over the past 50 years, and that includes cases where Americans got infected outside of the country.
Globally, however, rabies kills about 59,000 people every year, mostly occurring in less developed Asian and African countries. The typical human incubation time for rabies varies from one to three months, as compared to about two weeks in a dog.
The proposed changes are undergoing a two-month public comment period till Sept. 8.
