Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

Scientists find new strain of HIV
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
03 Aug 2009
Area: Cameroon

Gorillas have been found, for the first time, to be a source of HIV.

Previous research had shown the HIV-1 strain, the main source of human infections, with 33m cases worldwide, originated from a virus in chimpanzees.

But researchers have now discovered an HIV infection in a Cameroonian woman which is clearly linked to a gorilla strain, Nature Medicine reports.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>A new human immunodeficiency virus derived from gorillas. Nature Medicine. 2009 Aug 02. [Epub ahead of print].

Sick Fish May Get Sicker: Climate Change and Other Stresses Expected to Affect Entire Populations of Fish
USGS Newsroom - www.usgs.gov/newsroom
03 Aug 2009

Entire populations of North American fish already are being affected by several emerging diseases, a problem that threatens to increase in the future with climate change and other stresses on aquatic ecosystems, according to a noted U.S. Geological Survey researcher giving an invited talk on this subject today at the Wildlife Disease Association conference in Blaine, Wash.

“A generation ago, we couldn’t have imaged the explosive growth in disease issues facing many of our wild fish populations,” said Dr. Jim Winton, a fish disease specialist at the USGS Western Fisheries Research Center. “Most fish health research at that time was directed toward diseases of farmed fish.”

>>>FULL ARTICLE

'Ebola Cousin' Marburg Virus Isolated From African Fruit Bats
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: CDC)
02 Aug 2009
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain Image

A team of scientists have reported the successful isolation of genetically diverse Marburg viruses from a common species of African fruit bat (Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus). A paper published in the open-access science journal PLoS Pathogens provides new insight into the identity of the natural host of this deadly disease.

Infection with Marburg virus and the related Ebola virus can produce severe disease in people, with fever and bleeding. During outbreaks, as many as 90 percent of those infected have died. The natural reservoir for Marburg virus, and its cousin Ebola virus, has been the subject of much speculation and scientific investigation.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Isolation of Genetically Diverse Marburg Viruses from Egyptian Fruit Bats. 2009 Jul 31. [Epub ahead of print].

Reported Wildlife Mortality Events to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Updated
USGS National Wildlife Health Center
03 Aug 2009
Area: United States

USGS and a network of partners across the country work on documenting wildlife mortality events in order to provide timely and accurate information on locations, species and causes of death. This information was updated on July 31, 2009 on the USGS National Wildlife Health Center web page, New and Ongoing Wildlife Mortality Events Nationwide. Quarterly Mortality Reports are also available from this page. These reports go back to 1995.

>>>Updated Wildlife Mortality Event Table

Bats: Counting a catastrophe
Burlington Free Press - www.burlingtonfreepress.com
02 Aug 2009
C Page
Photo credit: Emily Nelson/Free Press
Area: Vermont, USA

A bat apocalypse has struck the Northeastern United States. The signs are clear here, in an old barn on the edge of a wetland at the Sandbar Wildlife Management Area in Milton.

Vermont has lost perhaps two-thirds of its bats — 400,000 animals — in just two years, devastating the night-flying animals that eat half their weight in insects every summer night.

The floor of Aeolus Cave in Dorset, home to wintering bats for 10,000 years, was piled last winter with the bodies of 10,000 to 20,000 bats, so many that an accurate count was impossible.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related News
>>>N.H. losing more bats to white nose syndrome

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Image.