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Prevalence Of Rats And Rodent Borne Pathogens Across Post-Katrina New Orleans, Bruno Marco Ghersi

Doctoral Dissertations

Disasters are happening at an increasingly higher rate and intensity a trend that is expected to continue as more humans migrate to coastal urban areas. Disasters, and as importantly, disaster recovery can affect how native and pest populations will recover. My aim was to improve understanding of disease risk by evaluating the socioecological conditions that have shaped commensal rat recovery and distribution, as well as the pathogens they carry, across New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I first estimated relative abundance and distribution of commensal rats from rodent trapping conducted between mid-2014 and early-2017 across 96 sites in 10 areas of …

Malignant Catarrhal Fever Viruses In Tennessee Ruminants, Robin Lynn Cissell

Doctoral Dissertations

Malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) is a lymphoproliferative and inflammatory syndrome affecting primarily ruminant species. The disease, which is often fatal, is most often described as affecting bovids and cervids. No vaccines are available for prevention of MCFV infection. The primary method to control spread of disease is to prevent contact between carriers and clinically susceptible species. There is no known method to control infection of malignant catarrhal fever virus-white-tailed deer variant (MCFV-WTD), as the carrier animal of this virus is unknown.

To determine the prevalence of malignant catarrhal fever viruses in Tennessee ruminant populations, blood and/or lymph node samples were …

Methicillin Resistance In Staphylococcus Pseudintermedius, Chad Christopher Black

Doctoral Dissertations

Staphylococcus pseudintermedius affecting dogs is analogous to S. aureus on humans, acting as both normal flora and opportunistic pathogen. Methicillin resistance in S. pseudintermedius is recent, with the first documented occurrence of an isolate bearing the methicillin resistance gene, mecA, in 1999. This gene encodes penicillin binding protein 2a, which renders all beta-lactam drugs ineffective and functions as a “gateway” antibiotic resistance determinant. In the presence of ineffective antibiotics, opportunities for mutational events and acquisition of mobile genetic elements increase as microbial densities increase, often leading to multi-drug resistance. Methicillin-resistant S. pseudintermedius (MRSP) infections have become increasingly common. For …