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1. Gloucester County horse contracts encephalitis, is euthanized [NJ]
By NJ.com Staff
August 31, 2015
A 2-year-old Gloucester County filly is the first reported case in 2015 of Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), a serious, mosquito-borne illness in horses. The horse had not been vaccinated against EEE was humanely euthanized on Aug. 25.
"Horse owners need to be vigilant in vaccinating their animals against diseases spread by mosquitoes," said New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher. "Vaccinated animals are much less likely to contract deadly diseases such as EEE and West Nile Virus."
EEE causes inflammation of the brain tissue and has a significantly higher risk of death in horses than West Nile Virus infection. West Nile virus is a viral disease that affects horses' neurological systems. The disease is transmitted by mosquito bite. The virus cycles between birds and mosquitoes with horses and humans being incidental hosts
EEE infections in horses are not a significant risk factor for human infection because horses (like humans) are considered to be "dead-end" hosts for the virus.
In 2014, New Jersey had four cases of EEE. No cases of West Nile Virus (WNV) were reported last year.
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2. TVMDL Reports Additional Equine WNV Cases in Texas [edited]
By Edited Press Release
TheHorse.com
August 31, 2015
Additional equine West Nile virus (WNV) cases have been diagnosed by the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL). The number of WNV positive cases in Texas now totals ten.
As of Aug. 24, the TVMDL can confirm that a total of 10 horses residing in Houston, Atascosa, Jefferson, Roberts, Sterling, Parker, Randall, Liberty, Scurry, and Hutchinson counties have tested positive for WNV.
As with earlier reported positive cases, the affected horses were not previously vaccinated against the disease.
Additionally, although the TVMDL Serology Section has received numerous requests for Eastern equine encephalitis testing, the number of positive cases remains at 7 for 2015.
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3. South Dakota Turkey Farms Hit by Bird Flu Restocked, Recovering
Associated Press
AgWeb.com
August 31,2015
All nine of the turkey farms in South Dakota that were affected by the deadly bird flu virus during the spring have restocked and are raising birds again, though the lone chicken farm has yet to recover.
Officials say South Dakota is recovering faster than most other states that were hit by the H5N2 virus, which wiped out 48 million turkeys and chickens in the U.S. and 1.7 million in the state. Jeff Sveen, the board chairman for Dakota Provisions, a farmer-owned plant that processes turkeys, attributes the speedy recovery to good cooperation with producers and Dustin Oedekoven, the state veterinarian.
"We're ahead of anybody else in the country," Sveen said, noting that the final farm was repopulated last week. "We're a small state, we get things done."
Oedekoven, on the other hand, gives credit to the turkey growers, who are all Hutterites, a German-speaking people who primarily work in agriculture. Plus, he said, the majority of South Dakota's farms are independently, not corporately, owned.
"They're very hard working. They definitely have an ownership in what they're doing and they have an interest in getting it done as well as possible and as quickly as possible so that they can get back in production," he said.
The bird flu, which first showed up in South Dakota at the beginning of April, took a financial toll on the state's farmers and processing plants.
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4. Ranchers face loss of livestock, livelihoods in Washington fires [edited]
By Erica Curless
The Spokesman-Review
August 30, 2015
DANVILLE, Wash. - The burned carcasses blend into the scorched landscape, just more black and ash among the haunting outline of trees. "There she is," rancher Doug Grumbach says, pointing up the steep slope near his ranch. "It looks like she was trying to run and froze in that mode."
Grumbach, like cattle ranchers across fire-ravaged north-central Washington, isn't sure of his total losses. The devastation includes not only body counts but hundreds of miles of fence, grazing land and water sources on his family's fourth-generation ranch. So far, he knows of eight dead cows and four calves, a loss of about $35,000. Thirty more of his Angus herd is missing. In his corrals at home are a cow and several calves with burned hooves.
For some ranchers, this is the second year of hardship - first stemming from drought and now another round of deadly fire.
Chris Bieker, of the federal Farm Service Agency in Spokane, doesn't know how many cattle died in the fires. There are places livestock owners haven't been able to get into because of fire and road closures.
"At this point, anything is just a wild guess," he said.
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5. Animal Health Corridor in Kansas and Missouri celebrates 10 years
By The Associated Press
Topeka Capital-Journal
August 31. 2015
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Animal Health Corridor that stretches 300 miles in Kansas and Missouri has attracted more than 300 companies in 10 years to do research and develop animal health products, supporters said.
Nearly 1,000 people are expected to gather in Kansas City for an anniversary dinner Monday night and an investor showcase Tuesday for the corridor, which goes from Manhattan to Columbia, Mo., The Kansas City Star reported (http://bit.ly/1ieOj61).
The corridor has become "the Silicon Valley for animal health research and development," said Sam Al-Murrani, interim CEO of Prommune Inc., a startup working on swine and avian flu vaccines that is relocating to Overland Park, Kansas, from Omaha, Nebraska.
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6. Illinois veterinary student chronicles experiences working at state fair
By Lynsee Melchi, University of Illinois
Bovine Veterinarian
August 31, 2015
Where there is an animal, you can expect to find a veterinarian in close proximity. This year was the first time the Integrated Food Animal Medicine Systems team from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine was on site at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, providing veterinary care for more than 2,000 animals hailing from all corners of the state.
Student volunteers and clinical staff from the Veterinary Teaching Hospital's Large Animal Clinic were present for two weeks, from setup to teardown, providing on-call services for all species. The team also assisted with specific procedures, such as care of the sows and piglets in the farrowing barn at the Illinois Department of Agriculture's exhibit and helping the state veterinarian's team collect samples from the champion show animals. This collaboration was beneficial to all parties in many respects, and our team got a lot of thanks from many parties for being there to help out.
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7. Rare Brain Disease is Caused by Cousin of Mad Cow Agent, Study Finds
by Maggie Fox
NBCNews.com
August 31, 2015
A rare, incurable brain disorder that resembles Parkinson's disease is caused by a misfolded brain protein called a prion, similar to the prions that cause mad cow disease, researchers reported on Monday.
The discovery adds to a very short list of human diseases linked to mutant prions, and suggests anyone doing brain surgery should take extra care, the researchers said.
The disease is called multiple system atrophy or MSA, and it affects somewhere between 15,000 and 50,000 Americans at any given time.
"Symptoms tend to appear in a person's 50s and advance rapidly over the course of 5 to 10 years, with progressive loss of motor function and eventual confinement to bed," the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health, says on its website.
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