Wildlife Disease News Digest

Father 'caught bird flu from son'
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
08 April 2008
Photo courtesy of BBC News
Area: China

Tests on a father diagnosed with bird flu in China show he probably caught the disease from his dying son. Scientists are concerned that if the virus evolves to pass easily from human to human millions could be at risk. A genetic analysis of the Chinese case published in The Lancet found no evidence to suggest the virus had gained that ability. But an expert has warned that failure to control outbreaks of disease in poultry is fuelling the risk to humans.

Writing in The Lancet, Dr Jeremy Farrar, of Vietnam's Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said: "Whatever the underlying determinants, if we continue to experience widespread, uncontrolled outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry, the appearance of strains well adapted to human beings might just be matter of time." However, he said a pandemic was by no means a "biological inevitability". So far 376 cases of human infection with the H5N1 form of bird flu have been recorded in 14 countries since November 2003, mostly in South East Asia. There have been 238 recorded deaths from the virus, of which a quarter have come in clusters of two or more linked people.

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Bat Disease Continues to Baffle Researchers
WCAX-TV – www.wcaz.com
08 Apr 2008
K Duffy
Location: Greeley Talc Mine, Vermont, USA

The old Greeley Talc Mine sits high on a hillside above the banks of the White River.
It's the only place in the Green Mountain National Forest where bats are known to be hibernating.

The U.S. Forest Service hopes it's remote enough that the hundreds of bats inside will be protected from a mysterious disease.

"In this particular cave, we have not found the effects of white nose syndrome yet," said Rob Hoelscher, a wildlife biologist with the USFS.

White nose syndrome is a fungus that's been found in hibernating bat populations, killing an estimated 90 to 95 percent of bats in affected areas. It has spread to at least 25 sites in the Northeast, including sites in Vermont, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

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>>> Illness threatens bats

Hermaphrodite Frogs Found in Suburban Ponds
New York Times – www.nytimes.com
08 Apr 2008
F Barringer
Location: Connecticut, USA

Just as frogs’ mating season arrives, a study by a Yale professor raises a troubling issue. How many frogs will be clear on their role in the annual springtime ritual?

Common frogs that make their homes in suburban areas are more likely than their rural counterparts to develop the reproductive abnormalities previously found in fish in the Potomac and Mississippi Rivers, according to the study by David Skelly, a professor of ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Dr. Skelly’s research found that 21 percent of male green frogs, Rana clamitans, taken from suburban Connecticut ponds are hermaphrodites, with immature eggs growing in their testes.
The study is the latest in a decade’s worth of research that has found intersex characteristics in water-dwelling species like sharp-tooth catfish in South Africa, small-mouth bass on the Potomac and shovelnose sturgeon in the Mississippi.

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Comprehensive Plan to eradicate bovine TB announced in Wales
eGov Monitor – www.egovmonitor.com (source: Welsh Assembly Government)
09 Apr 2008
Image courtesy of The Independent

A comprehensive plan of action to eradicate the infectious disease bovine TB in Wales was announced by Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones today [Tuesday, 8 April]. The plan includes measures to test all cattle herds across Wales in order to measure the extent of the infection, to remove all sources of the infection on farms and to review the compensation system.

Bovine TB is having a devastating impact on the health and welfare of the national cattle herd in Wales. It is a disease that can be transmitted to humans and to and from other mammals. The incidence of TB has increased dramatically over the past decade with 7,905 cattle slaughtered in Wales because of the disease in 2007 compared with less than 700 in 1997. The cost of compensation in Wales has risen from £1.8m in 2000/01 financial year to £15.2m in 2007/08. On present trends by 2012 it could exceed £30m.

Today’s announcement meets the One Wales commitment to pursue vigorously a programme of TB eradication in Wales, which is backed by £27m of funding over three years.

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