Human Deaths from Animal Diseases on the Rise
Livescience.com
08 Nov 2006
Jeanna Bryner
An estimated 50 million people caught diseases from animals such as dogs, cattle, chickens and mosquitoes between 2000 and 2005, according to a new study. Some 78,000 of them died. The finding reveals the global urgency for doctors to stay vigilant when it comes to zoonotic illnesses—those transmitted by non-human animals. By reviewing past studies, virologist Jonathan Heeney of the Biomedical Primate Research Center in The Netherlands found the diseases responsible for the majority of zoonotic illnesses seem to be increasing.
What’s worrisome is there are no effective vaccines for some of the most common zoonotic viruses. Heeney said doctors and veterinarians need to work together to tackle this increasing global threat. Most recently, the bird flu, or H5N1, has garnered public attention for its potential not only to spread from chickens and other birds to humans, but also for the virus to mutate in a way that allows it to spread between humans. During the study period, bird flu killed just over half of the 145 people infected with the virus.
Development of a GIS-based, real-time Internet mapping tool for rabies surveillance [Journal Article]
International Journal of Health Geographics
01 Nov 2006
Jesse D Blanton et al.
Abstract
Background
Oral rabies vaccination programs have been implemented to control the spread of wildlife rabies in the United States. However, current surveillance systems are inadequate for the efficient management and evaluation of these large scale vaccine baiting programs. With this in mind, a GIS-based rabies surveillance database and Internet mapping application was created. This surveillance system, RabID, provides a new resource for the rapid mapping and dissemination of data on animal rabies cases in relation to unaffected, enzootic, and baited areas where current interventions are underway.
Results
RabID is a centralized database for diagnostic and demographic information collected by local, state, and federal agencies involved in rabies surveillance. The geo-referenced database remits data to an Internet-accessible mapping application that displays rabies surveillance data in relation to environmental and geographic features.
Red Tide Suspected as Cause of Lower Keys Bird Sickness
Florida Keys Keynoter (Posted by HeraldToday.com)
09 Nov 2006
Jessica Machetta
Some Lower Keys birds have been getting sick, and their symptoms are consistent with brevetoxicosis, a disease caused by ingesting fish affected by red tide, authorities say. However, health officials can't be sure that's the problem since "Maya's been doing such a good job rehabbing and releasing the birds," said Dr. Danielle Stanek, surveillance coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. Maya Totman, director of the Exotic and Wild Bird Rescue on Big Pine Key, contacted Stanek after treating five belted kingfishers, a pied bill grebe and an osprey. All exhibited the same symptoms.
Sickness occurs when red-tide algae (brevetoxin) accumulates in the intestines of fish, which are in turn eaten by shorebirds. "Red tide is further up north on the west coast, but it is traveling down closer to the Keys," Stanek said. "The signs are consistent with what we believe is red tide. "Without looking at an actual bird, or doing a necropsy, we can only theorize and speculate."
Disease Stops Parrot Release
Mercury
09 Nov 2006
Michelle Paine
A planned release of orange-bellied parrots into the wild this year has been cancelled as a quarantine cover continues over the endangered bird.
The cause of death of 43 baby birds at the government breeding facility at Taroona last summer has still not been determined. DNA tests of captive birds at Taroona and the sister population at Healesville Sanctuary near Melbourne have proved negative to a range of known herpes viruses. The adult parrots remain healthy and a new batch of eggs are expected to start hatching late this month. "We'll be watching the nestlings' progress closely this summer," said Threatened Species Projects manager Mark Holdsworth.
"Normally young birds would be released mid-October and we were thinking of doing a late release from Healesville this week. However, we had a meeting with experts from Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania (captive breeding program participants) and agreed to maintain the voluntary quarantine on the captive population until further tests are run," said Mr Holdsworth. Further herpes virus testing would also be done on wild birds this summer. Normally 30 to 40 birds would be released in the South-West each October to bolster the tiny population.
No comments:
Post a Comment