Veterinary Infectious Diseases Commons^™

Defining County-Level Terrestrial Rabies Freedom Using The Us National Rabies Surveillance System: Surveillance Data Analysis, Amber Kunkel, Gabriella Veytsel, Sarah C. Bonaparte, Haillie Meek, Xiaoyue Ma, Amy J. Davis, Jesse Bonwitt, Ryan M. Wallace

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Background: Rabies is a deadly zoonotic disease with nearly 100% fatality rate. In the United States, rabies virus persists in wildlife reservoirs, with occasional spillover into humans and domestic animals. The distribution of reservoir hosts in US counties plays an important role in public health decision-making, including the recommendation of lifesaving postexposure prophylaxis upon suspected rabies exposures. Furthermore, in surveillance data, it is difficult to discern whether counties have no cases reported because rabies was not present or because counties have an unreported rabies presence. These epizootics are monitored by the National Rabies Surveillance System (NRSS), to which approximately 130 …

What The Covid-19 Crisis Is Telling Humanity, David Wiebers, Valery Feigin

Animal Sentience

The planet is in a global health emergency exacting enormous medical and economic tolls. It is imperative for us as a society and species to focus and reflect deeply upon what this and other related human health crises are telling us about our role in these increasingly frequent events and about what we can do to prevent them in the future.

Cause: It is human behavior that is responsible for the vast majority of zoonotic diseases that jump the species barrier from animals to humans: (1) hunting, capture, and sale of wild animals for human consumption, particularly in live-animal markets; …

New Approach To Health And The Environment To Avoid Future Pandemics, Serge Morand

Animal Sentience

This commentary expands Wiebers & Feigin’s target article by pinpointing how declining wildlife, expanding livestock and globalisation contribute to the increase in epidemics of zoonotic diseases, the COVID-19 crisis and future health crises. Epidemics and the emergence of zoonoses are manifestations of dysfunctional links with animals, both wild and domestic, requiring a new approach to health and the environment.

The Human/Animal Interface: Emergence And Resurgence Of Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Michael Greger

Michael Greger, MD, FACLM

Emerging infectious diseases, most of which are considered zoonotic in origin, continue to exact a significant toll on society. The origins of major human infectious diseases are reviewed and the factors underlying disease emergence explored. Anthropogenic changes, largely in land use and agriculture, are implicated in the apparent increased frequency of emergence and reemergence of zoonoses in recent decades. Special emphasis is placed on the pathogen with likely the greatest zoonotic potential, influenzavirus A.

The Human/Animal Interface: Emergence And Resurgence Of Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Michael Greger

Transgenesis Collection

Emerging infectious diseases, most of which are considered zoonotic in origin, continue to exact a significant toll on society. The origins of major human infectious diseases are reviewed and the factors underlying disease emergence explored. Anthropogenic changes, largely in land use and agriculture, are implicated in the apparent increased frequency of emergence and reemergence of zoonoses in recent decades. Special emphasis is placed on the pathogen with likely the greatest zoonotic potential, influenzavirus A.

Rodent-Borne Hemorrhagic Fever Viruses: A Special Risk For Mammalogists?, James E. Childs, James N. Mills, Gregory E. Glass

Other Publications in Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease

We review two groups of taxonomically unrelated viruses that share similarities in host preference and transmission routes to humans and pose a risk for mammalogists working with rodents. The rodent-borne hemorrhagic fever viruses in the Arenaviridae and Bunyaviridae are widely distributed on most continents where rodents occur. Their geographic distribution usually exceeds the distribution of the recognized human diseases they cause and has resulted from either natural coevolutionary events or the dissemination of viral passengers traveling with introduced mammalian hosts. Diseases of humans caused by these agents are among the most severe and most frequently fatal of zoonotic diseases. These …

Rabies--Epidemiology, Prevention, And Future Research, John W. Krebs, Mark L. Wilson, James E. Childs

Other Publications in Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease

Rabies is caused by a single-stranded, negative-sense RNA virus, maintained in nature by a variety of animal reservoirs. Rabies virus infects the central nervous system, resulting in progressive encephalopathy and ultimately death in an infected human. Globally, the risk of contracting rabies for humans is greatest in regions of the developing world where dog rabies is enzootic. Where rabies in dogs has been eliminated or otherwise controlled through vaccination programs, the disease can be maintained by wildlife. Wildlife primarily involved in maintenance of transmission cycles are carnivores and bats. Persons having frequent contact with wildlife, such as mammalogists, are at …

Brucellosis Can Cause Contagious Abortion In Cattle And Undulant Fever In Man, F C. Wilkinson

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

WHEN the cow, shown in the accompanying photograph, was purchased it had a small fluid-filled lump on the left knee.

The swelling did not appear to be painful but gradually increased in size until it assumed the proportions shown in the picture.

It was a typical case of "big-knee," one of the less common manifestations of Brucellosis—the disease commonly known as contagious abortion—and a blood test of the animal confirmed the diagnosis.