Migratory Birds Key Indicator of Health of Environment: On the Refuge
The Sherwood Gazette (Posted by SustainableLife)
29 Mar 2007
C Uyemura
. . . . Migratory birds are valuable and beneficial. They are key indicators of the health of our environment. As their populations decline, our quality of life declines as well. They are the colorful songsters that announce spring's arrival. They pollinate plants and consume huge quantities of insect pests. They also generate millions of recreational dollars from birdwatchers, hunters and photographers.
Migratory birds are increasingly threatened at both ends of their migration. Declining habitat is a major problem. In North America more and more natural environments are being fragmented and paved over. These activities strip natural areas of the variety of trees and plants birds need for food, shelter and to raise young. Pesticides and herbicides kill off their food supply or poison the birds directly.
Tularaemia Outbreak in Northern Norway
Eurosurveillance
29 Mar 2007
AB Branstaeter et al.
Area: Norway
Since November 2006, nine cases of tularaemia from three adjacent municipalities in northern Norway have been laboratory-confirmed. According to notification forms from clinicians, eight cases had cervical lymphadenopathy, with additional mention of oral or pharyngeal infection in five. Information about the clinical picture is missing for one case at the time of submission of this report. The median age of the cases is 22 years (range 2-54 years), and seven are female. At the time of notification, two patients had recovered, two were still ill, and information was missing for the remaining five. Four of the cases were hospitalised.
Tularaemia is endemic in Norway and is caused by Francisella tularensis, which can be transmitted by rodents and hares. Large numbers of dead rodents (lemmings) are currently reported in the affected area after a large surge in the lemming population last autumn.
Koreas to Hold Talks to Tackle Foot-And-Mouth Disease
Yonhap News
30 Mar 2007
Area: North Korea
Quarantine officials from South and North Korea are to hold talks later Friday to discuss ways of stemming the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in the communist country, the Unification Ministry said.
The working-level talks, to be held in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, come two days after South Korea sent six types of medicine and five types of medical equipment worth about 280 million won (US$280,000) as part of its emergency aid to the North.
Healthmap; Aggregating Health Data [Blog Posting]
Biologics and Health Blog
28 Mar 2007
S Love
I saw an interesting site on the news today called healthmap.
“Healthmap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization).”
The alerts posted are not meant to be used as surveillance data, however they do give an interesting picture of some diseases that are present in certain areas. Many regions in the US are using automated syndromic surveillance which allows a very comprehensive analysis of disease syndromes present in the community.
Helicopter Speeds up Alberta Deer Cull
CBC News - cbc.ca
29 Mar 2007
Area: Alberta, Canada
The cull, meant to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease, was supposed to last until the end of the month, but was completed earlier this week after officials killed 450 deer in southern Alberta near Empress and 1,400 deer in an area just east of Wainwright.
Lyle Fullerton, who speaks for Sustainable Resource Development, says ground crews can normally kill about 70 deer a day, but using a helicopter upped the daily total to more than 200."This was something that we've been talking about for a couple of years because our topography," he said. "We felt that being able to use a helicopter would be probably more efficient and it certainly has proven that."Fullerton says they will now test the deer heads for the disease, which will take about a month.
Journal Article of Interest
A Synthetic Maternal-Effect Selfish Genetic Element Drives Population Replacement in Drosophila [online abstract only]
Science. 2007 Mar 29; [ePub ahead of print]
C Chen et al.
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