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1. World Organization for Animal Health meets in Paris this week
By JoAnn Alumbaugh, Editor
PORK Network
May 23, 2016
Delegates from the 180 member countries of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) are meeting in Paris for six days of discussion and debate on new international standards and guidelines for animal health and welfare. The meeting is chaired by Dr. Botlhe Michael Modisane, new President of the OIE.
The opening ceremony brought together nearly 800 participants for this 84th annual event. Members include government animal health authorities and representatives of national, regional, international and intergovernmental organizations.
The work of the General Session will continue over the next five days and conclude this Friday with the adoption of the resolutions voted on in plenary session by the entire assembly.
According to a news release from the OIE, the annual meeting represents the opportunity to adopt new intergovernmental standards for animal health and welfare, as well as to take stock of the current global landscape of animal diseases, including zoonoses. It also provides a forum for debate on the most recent developments in strategies for the prevention, control and eradication of current and emerging diseases.
This year also initiates the implementation of OIE's Sixth Strategic Plan. In line with the developments envisaged in this plan, Jonathan Rushton with the Royal Veterinary College of London will present the economics of animal health, studying the direct and indirect costs of animal disease outbreaks in OIE member countries. Also, a presentation by Dr. Jean-Pierre Orand, Director of the French agency for Veterinary Medicinal Products, will address antimicrobial resistance, which will allow the group to endorse fundamental principles to reduce the potential for resistance.
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2. Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, Horse Tests Positive for EIA
By The Horse Staff
TheHorse.com
May 23, 2016
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has announced that a stable in Enon Valley, in Lawrence County, has been quarantined after a horse on the premises tested positive for equine infectious anemia (EIA).
A statement on the Equine Disease Communication Center's website said the Pennsylvania Veterinary Laboratory returned the initial positive May 11, and confirmation from the National Veterinary Services Laboratory came May 21.
There are 34 other equids (including horses, Miniature Horses, and miniature donkeys) on this premises that are under quarantine. The index horse has been stabled at the farm for the past three years, and the state agriculture department is investigating that horse's movement history and any other potentially exposed horses.
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3. BVD: Massive economic toll on beef industry
By Wyatt Bechtel
Dairy Herd Management
May 23, 2016
Note: This story appeared in the May issue of Drovers and is the fourth part of a five part series.
Calculating the costs of bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) to the cattle industry is a difficult chore because it touches so many areas. Taking the task to determine how financially burdensome BVD can be, Derrell Peel, Extension livestock marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University, looked at all facets of the cattle industry from cow-calf, stockers, feedlots and even dairies.
"BVD impacts all sectors of the industry in different ways," Peel says.
"A lot of the loss is probably not even recognized by producers," he adds.
Peel looked at an array of economic studies that have been performed over the years analyzing the costs associated with BVD on individual sectors and found:
Beef cows $20 to $30 per cow
Dairy cows $45 to $55 per cow
Stocker and Feedlot calves $20 to $45 per feeder animal
All cattle and calves $17 to $28 per head
Peel estimates the total loss to the industry is $1.54 to $2.59 billion. However, he cautions estimates varied widely in the studies because of different population sets, various methodologies as well as economic assumptions.
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4. A New Hope: Breeding Better Bison At CSU, Genetically Pure, Free Of Dread Disease
By Michelle P. Fulcher
Colorado Public Radio
May 23, 2016
Some bison calves born recently in Northern Colorado represent a new hope for the species. They're the newest members of a herd that is, genetically speaking, as close as any to the iconic animals that roamed the plains before European settlers arrived.
But the herd is also descended from modern-day bison that live in Yellowstone and are plagued with a deadly disease called brucellosis, which is easily spread to other animals.
For years scientists at Colorado State University have grappled with a biological puzzle: how to preserve those historic genetics while ensuring the bison are disease-free and can roam without posing a danger to other animals.
Now they are starting to form an answer. In vitro fertilization and surrogate parenthood -- techniques already used in humans and other animal species -- can be tweaked and used in bison, too. The CSU scientists used those methods to breed a herd at a research facility on campus, and last fall, those animals were released to the prairie after ceremonies that included a prayer from a spiritual leader of the Crow Nation and the performance of a Pawnee going-home song.
The herd has grown with the births of five calves this spring -- including the one last week -- the first of what the experts hope will be generations of disease-free bison that can be relocated across the United States.
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5. Bat Counts Shrink as White-Nose Syndrome Spreads in Georgia
Posted on May 23, 2016 by Justin Stakes
AmmoLand.com
May 23, 2016
Social Circle, GA -- The disease that has killed more than 6 million bats in North America hasn't spared Georgia.
Since white-nose syndrome was first found here in 2013, the number of bats has plummeted by about 90 percent in caves and mines the Georgia Department of Natural Resources surveys each winter.
"They're just gone," said Katrina Morris, lead bat researcher for DNR's Nongame Conservation Section.
The surveys help gauge the impact of white-nose, or WNS, in the state. Nongame Conservation checked 20 hibernacula or refuges this winter, all but two of them in north Georgia. Morris' report notes that:
* Sixteen either tested positive for the fungus that causes white-nose, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or showed signs of being infected.
* In 10 caves checked annually since at least 2014, bat counts are down overall by 92 percent.
* Except for gray bats, no other Myotis bats were seen. While counts of bats in this genus are always low in north Georgia caves, this was the first time researchers found none, Morris said.
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6. New rapid methods for Salmonella detection
By Tim Sandle
Digital Journal
May 23, 2016
Salmonella is a major agent of food borne illness globally. Researchers are developing a range of new, rapid microbiological methods to speed up detection and to improve the accuracy of the results.
Salmonella is a Gram-negative rod shaped bacterium (the Gram-negative refers to the outcome of a cell staining test, relating to the structure of the organism's cell wall.) in the U.S. alone, the organism causes around one million cases of food poisoning each year.
The Salmonella genus is composed of two species, enterica and bongori, with six subspecies of S. enterica. This is more complex, since there are several different serotypes based on the presence of specific surface molecules. Some estimates put the number of serotypes as high as 2,500.
Until the 1990s cases of Salmonella infection were primarily related to contaminated poultry, meat and dairy food stuffs. However, in recent years, as Karen Graham's regular reports for Digital Journal testify, illnesses have become linked to a wider range of foods such as ready-to-eat produce like tomatoes, melons, sprouts, leafy greens and berries.
A new review paper considers the latest tests designed to speed up the detection of the bacteria from food samples, and also to improve the accuracy of reporting. Such rapid microbiological methods include qPCR, whole genome sequencing and metagenomics. The review is published in the journal Microbial Biotechnology ("Recent and emerging innovations in Salmonella detection: a food and environmental perspective.")
Although rapid testing has advanced over the past two decades, in order to best trace origins of contamination most identification and subtyping strategies require a pure isolate, and it takes time to culture such organisms
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7. UMaine team to track diseased lobsters caught off state's coast
By Penelope Overton, Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald
May 23, 2016
Every year, the University of Maine fields phone calls from lobstermen who suspect that pockmarked, thin-shelled lobsters they have hauled aboard have epizootic shell disease.
Sometimes, the university can send a researcher out to see if a lobster has the disease, which has ripped through the southern New England fishery and is just beginning to show up in Maine waters.
The university has had no money, however, to hire the staff it would need to collect and study diseased lobsters in real time. Usually, a diseased lobster is long gone, tossed back in the sea, before the researcher can study the specimen or even confirm the diagnosis.
But this spring, thanks to a $127,000 state grant, the University of Maine will create a rapid response team to collect and evaluate sick lobsters harvested in state waters as part of a study on the impacts of rising water temperatures and ocean acidification on the lobster population, said Deborah Bouchard, who runs the university's animal health lab and the research at its Aquaculture Research Institute.
"We want to get the word out to call us anytime that a lobsterman sees something in their traps that's not right," Bouchard said. "For years, all the dollars for this kind of thing went southward, where the highest incidence of shell disease was, but now we are seeing funding to study what's happening right here. Even though it's not prevalent in Maine waters now, we need to know what's creeping up the shoreline."
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