Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

Health experts call for unified efforts to face climate issues
JAVMA News - www.avma.org
20 Jan 2009

Human encroachment into uninhabited parts of Southeast Asia exposed people to unusual animals and previously unknown pathogens, and global travel carried a tropical zoonotic disease to Toronto in 2003, Dr. Barrett Slenning told a gathering of public health professionals. That transmission chain for severe acute respiratory syndrome would have been nearly impossible only a few decades ago, said Dr. Slenning of the Population Health and Pathobiology Department at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. "Economic globalization and climate change combine to allow people, plants, animals, products, markets, vectors, and contaminants to move very rapidly across the globe, creating a changing mix of biological systems with which we have never had to deal before," Dr. Slenning said, adding that the dynamism of that mix augments the complexity of challenges in animal and human health.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Bird flu spreads to Sikkim in northeast India
Reuters India - in.reuters.com
20 Jan 2009
Area: Ravangla, Sikkim, India - Map It

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in dead poultry and wild birds in Sikkim, which borders China and Nepal, and authorities plan to start culling poultry soon, an official said on Tuesday. Officials will initially cull an estimated 15,000 chickens and ducks after samples of more than 30 dead birds from Ravangla area in the southern part of the state tested positive in a central laboratory. The affected area borders West Bengal, which has been grappling with intermittent outbreaks of the virus since 2007. "Bird flu has been confirmed in Sikkim and we are waiting for the central team of experts to come here," said K.C. Bhutia, a senior veterinary official in the state capital, Gangtok.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Bacterial pathogens and rising temperatures threaten coral health
EurekAlert - www.eurekalert.org
20 Jan 2009

Coral reefs around the world are in serious trouble from pollution, over-fishing, climate change and more. The last thing they need is an infection. But that's exactly what yellow band disease (YBD) is—a bacterial infection that sickens coral colonies. Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues have found that YBD seems to be getting worse with global warming and announced that they've identified the bacteria responsible for the disease. Just as a doctor can diagnose a child with chicken pox by the small, round bumps on her skin, you can tell a coral with yellow band disease (YBD) by its own characteristic markings.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>The Vibrio core group induces yellow band disease in Caribbean and Indo-Pacific reef-building corals. J Appl Microbiol. 2008 Nov; 105(5):1658-71.

Food choices and location influence California sea otter exposure to disease
EurekAlert - www.eurekalert.org
19 Jan 2009
Area: California, United States

Sea otters living along the central California coast risk higher exposure to disease-causing parasites as a consequence of the food they eat and where they feed. Sea otters that eat small marine snails are at a higher risk of exposure to Toxoplasma gondii, a potentially deadly protozoal pathogen, than animals that feed exclusively on other prey, while sea otters living along the coast near San Simeon and Cambria are more at risk than sea otters that live outside this area. Similarly, sea otters that commonly feed on clams and fat innkeeper worms at the southern end of Monterey Bay have a higher exposure risk to another dangerous protozoal pathogen, Sarcocystis neurona. On the other hand, sea otters whose diet includes significant amounts of abalone, a preferred prey species when sufficiently abundant, have a very low risk of infection with either pathogen.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related News
>>>How Toxoplasma Gondii Gets Noticed

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: National Geographic News - news.nationalgeographic.com