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Tuberculosis epidemiology in islands: insularity, hosts and trade

Investigation article published in PLoS ONE

Because of their relative simplicity and the barriers to gene flow, islands are ideal systems to study the distribution of biodiversity. However, the knowledge that can be extracted from this peculiar ecosystem regarding epidemiology of economically relevant diseases has not been widely addressed. We used information available in the scientific literature for 10 old world islands or archipelagos and original data on Sicily to gain new insights into the epidemiology of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC). We explored three nonexclusive working hypotheses on the processes modulating bov… Read more

La gran evasión. La fuga de miles de millones de bacterias

Interview in Diario de las 2. RNE of RTVE

African swine fever (ASF): Five years around Europe

Investigation published in Veterinary Microbiology

Since African swine fever (ASF) was re-introduced into Eastern Europe in April 2007, the disease has spread through five countries, drastically changing the European ASF situation. This re-introduction has significant implications for the affected countries, and it puts the European Union (EU) at serious risk of ASF introduction. Numerous factors are complicating the control of ASF in the Russian Federation and neighboring areas, particularly the absence of a coordinated control program, the abundance of backyard pig units with low or no biosecurity and the traditional use of swill feeding. Al… Read more

Identification of suitable areas for the occurrence of Rift Valley fever outbreaks in Spain using a multiple criteria decision framework

Investigation published in Veterinary Microbiology

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a mosquito-borne viral disease that may produce a considerable impact on the economy in affected countries. In the last decades, the geographic distribution of RVF virus has increased including most of the countries in Africa, Arabia Saudi and Yemen. This situation has raised the concerns regarding its potential introduction in the European Union (EU) countries where the high number of susceptible species and competent vectors may contribute to the spread of the disease and challenge its rapid control. Thus, the identification of the areas and time periods with highe… Read more

One World, One Health, One Virology

Veterinary Microbiology publish this investigation article

Under the title of One World, One Health, One Virology, the 9th International Congress of Veterinary Virology of the European Society for Veterinary Virology (ESVV) was held at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Madrid from 4th to 7th September 2012. The variety of topics covered and discussed included: Emerging viruses; Epidemiology, risk assessment and modeling; Enzootic viral infections; Vaccines, antivirals and viral immunology; Viral diagnosis; Clinical virology; Evolution and genomics; Host-virus interactions. In addition, two special seminars, in which eight guest speakers participat… Read more

Evaluation of the risk of classical swine fever (CSF) spread from backyard pigs to other domestic pigs by using the spatial stochastic disease spread model Be-FAST: The example of Bulgaria

Investigation article published in Veterinary Microbiology

The study presented here is one of the very first aimed at exploring the potential spread of classical swine fever (CSF) from backyard pigs to other domestic pigs. Specifically, we used a spatial stochastic spread model, called Be-FAST, to evaluate the potential spread of CSF virus (CSFV) in Bulgaria, which holds a large number of backyards (96% of the total number of pig farms) and is one of the very few countries for which backyard pigs and farm counts are available. The model revealed that, despite backyard pigs being very likely to become infected, infections from backyard pigs to other do… Read more

Control of bluetongue in Europe

Veterinary Microbiology publish this investigation article

Since 1998, bluetongue virus (BTV) serotypes 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 16 have spread throughout Europe. In 2006, BTV serotype 8 (BTV-8) emerged unexpectedly in northern Europe throughout a region including Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In the following year, it spread rapidly throughout the rest of Europe. In 2008, two more BTV serotypes were detected in northern Europe: BTV-6 in the Netherlands and Germany and BTV-11 in Belgium. The European incursion of BTV has caused considerable economic losses, comprising not only direct losses from mortality and reduced produc… Read more

Simultaneous diagnosis of Cetacean morbillivirus infection in dolphins stranded in the Spanish Mediterranean sea in 2011 using a novel Universal Probe Library (UPL) RT-PCR assay

Investigation published in Veterinary Microbiology

A highly sensitive and specific real-time (rt) RT-PCR assay has been developed for rapid, simultaneous detection of three strains of cetacean morbillivirus (CeMV). In this assay, two PCR primers and a hydrolysis probe from a commercially available Universal Probe Library (UPL) are used to amplify a highly conserved region within the fusion protein gene. RT-PCR is carried out on the same sample using two primer sets in parallel: one set detects the more virulent strains, dolphin morbillivirus (DMV) and porpoise morbillivirus (PMV), and the other set detects the least virulent and least common s… Read more

Potential use of oral fluid samples for serological diagnosis of African swine fever

Investigation published in Veterinary Microbiology

African swine fever (ASF) is a complex, highly lethal, notifiable disease of swine. ASF is wide-spread in sub-Saharan Africa and East European countries and there is presently a great risk of spread to neighboring countries. Since there is no vaccine for ASF virus (ASFV), control is based on rapid and early detection of the disease via surveillance. This approach requires collecting blood samples from large number of animals. Laborious and expensive of itself, this process also presents an additional risk because ASFV is present at high concentrations in the blood. The objective of this study … Read more

Identification of Hotspots in the European Union for the Introduction of Four Zoonotic Arboviroses by Live Animal Trade

Investigation published in PLoS ONE

Live animal trade is considered a major mode of introduction of viruses from enzootic foci into disease-free areas. Due to societal and behavioural changes, some wild animal species may nowadays be considered as pet species. The species diversity of animals involved in international trade is thus increasing. This could benefit pathogens that have a broad host range such as arboviruses. The objective of this study was to analyze the risk posed by live animal imports for the introduction, in the European Union (EU), of four arboviruses that affect human and horses: Eastern and Western equine enc… Read more

Detection and assessment of electrocution in endangered raptors by infrared thermography

BMC Veterinary Research publish this investigation article

BACKGROUND: Most European birds of prey find themselves in a poor state of conservation, with electrocution as one of the most frequent causes of unnatural death. Since early detection of electrocution is difficult, treatment is usually implemented late, which reduces its effectiveness. By considering that electrocution reduces tissue temperature, it may be detectable by thermography, which would allow a more rapid identification. Three individuals from three endangered raptor species [Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti), Lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus) and Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)] we… Read more

The study of the adjuvanticity of plasmid containing swine-specific CpG motif on two swine vaccines

Guo Xiaoyu defended the PhD Thesis at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid

CpG motif is described as a type of Immunostimulatory Sequence (ISS)，in which an unmethylated cytosine-phosphate-guanosine (CpG) motif is flanked by two 5′ purines and two 3′ pyrimidines. Since its discovery in 1995, several studies have shown that ODNs containing unmethylated CpG motifs (designated as CpG ODN) can activate host immune defense mechanisms, leading to both innate and acquired immune responses through toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9)–mediated recognition… Read more

La Armada española utilizará leones marinos

Interview in La 1. Telediario 2 of RTVE

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The Complutense University of Madrid signs a collaboration agreement with ANICE in animal health and food safety for meat industry

VISAVET provide scientific and technological support ANICE, and will Reference Laboratory sectoral projects of interest to the meat industry and knowledge transfer to industry

The National Association of Meat Industries of Spain (ANICE) has signed an agreement with the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) to boost cooperation with VISAVET Health Surveillance Center.… Read more

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- Anice y Visavet acuerdan garantizar la sanidad animal y la seguridad alimentaria para la industria cárnica - Interempresas.net

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Aumentan los casos de enfermedades de transmisión sexual entre los jóvenes

Course on human and animal diseases caused by microorganisms and parasites

Ayer se celebró la primera jornada del curso de verano centrado en patologías humanas y de animales producidas por microorganismos y parásitos…

- Expertos alertan del repunte de las enfermedades de transmisión sexual entre los jóvenes - unex.es

Frequency of zoonotic enteric pathogens and antimicrobial resistance in wild boar (Sus scrofa), Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica) and sympatric free-ranging livestock in a natural environment (NE Spain)

PhD Thesis defense by Nora Navarro González at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Autonomus University of Barcelona

The transmission of zoonotlc pathogens from wildlife to livestock, and vice versa, is a cause of global concern since wild ungulates are becoming more abundant and widely distributed throughout Europe, even in urban areas. In parallel, in the European Union some food-borne zoonoses are increasing in frequency each year. To compound these factors, antimicrobial resistance is a global threat and should be monitored to prevent its spread. The purpose of this Thesis was to investigate whether selected zoonotic pathogens are shared between free-ranging livestock and sympatric wild ungulates (wild b… Read more

Actualización en enfermedades humanas y de animales producidas por microorganismos y parásitos. Cursos Internacionales de Verano UNEX. 2013 edition

Communications in this event:

- Estafilococos resistentes a meticilina (MRSAs) en fauna salvaje

- Zoonosis digestivas transmitidas por fauna salvaje y exótica

- Enfermedades producidas por garrapatas procedentes de fauna salvaje

- Tuberculosis en animales salvajes y de zoo

- Leishmaniosis en liebres: nuevos reservorios para una vieja enfermedad

- Presentación del Centro de Vigilancia Sanitaria Veterinaria

Progress in vaccine development

Oral communication in Annual Consortium Meeting at LSHTM

Optimizing the sampling effort to evaluate body condition in ungulates: A case study on red deer

Ecological Indicators publish this investigation article

Body condition is a useful measure of the nutritional status and performance in ungulates. The most widely used indicators of body condition are based on fat reserves, mainly those surrounding the kidneys. To estimate the body condition in large herbivores, researchers often collect and pool the data from both kidneys and their perirenal fat in order to compensate for potential differences between the body condition indicators obtained from the left and right kidneys. Since these differences do not seem to be properly established in wildlife, we checked for the potential differences between th… Read more

Assessment of Virulence Factors Characteristic of Human Escherichia coli Pathotypes and Antimicrobial Resistance in O157:H7 and Non-O157:H7 Isolates from Livestock in Spain

Investigation article published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Distribution of virulence factors (VFs) typical of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles were assessed in 780 isolates from healthy pigs, broilers and cattle from Spain. VF distribution was broader than expected although at low prevalence for most genes, with AMR being mainly linked to host species… Read more

Garvicin A, a novel class IId bacteriocin from Lactococcus garvieae that inhibits septum formation in L. garvieae strains

Applied and Environmental Microbiology publish this investigation article

Lactococcus garvieae 21881, isolated from a human clinical case, produces a novel class IId bacteriocin, garvicin A (GarA), which is specifically active against other L. garvieae strains, including fish and bovine pathogenic isolates. Purification from active supernatants, sequence analyses, and plasmid-curing experiments identified pGL5, one of the five plasmids found in L. garvieae 21881 (Aguado-Urda M, Gibello A, Blanco MM, López-Campos GH, Cutuli MT, Fernández-Garayzábal JF. 2012. PLoS ONE 7 (6):e40119. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040119), as the coding plasmid for the structural gene of Gar… Read more

Association of the novel aminoglycoside resistance determinant RmtF with NDM carbapenemase in Enterobacteriaceae isolated in India and the UK

Investigation published in The Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

OBJECTIVES: 16S rRNA methyltransferases are an emerging mechanism conferring high-level resistance to clinically relevant aminoglycosides and have been associated with important mechanisms such as NDM-1. We sought genes encoding these enzymes in isolates highly resistant (MIC >200 mg/L) to gentamicin and amikacin from an Indian hospital and we additionally screened for the novel RmtF enzyme in 132 UK isolates containing NDM. METHODS: All highly aminoglycoside-resistant isolates were screened for armA and rmtA-E by PCR, with cloning experiments performed for isolates negative for these genes. M… Read more

SatR is a repressor of fluoroquinolone efflux pump SatAB

Investigation article published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy

Streptococcus suis is an emerging zoonotic agent responsible for high-mortality outbreaks among the human population in China. In this species, the ABC transporter SatAB mediates fluoroquinolone resistance when overexpressed. Here we describe and characterize satR, an ORF encoding a MarR-superfamily regulator that acts as a repressor of satAB. satR is cotranscribed with satAB and its interruption entails the overexpression of the pump, leading to a clinically-relevant increase in resistance to fluoroquinolones… Read more

Tuberculosis caprina

Tierras. Caprino publish this article

Mycobacterium bovis es el principal agente etiológico de la tuberculosis bovina y M.caprae infecta más frecuentemente al ganado caprino, aunque ambas micobacterias pueden infectar indistintamente a bovinos y caprinos y a otras especies de mamíferos domésticos y de vida libre. De hecho, y como ha descrito la Task Force para la tuberculosis bovina (bovine tuberculosis subgroup of the Task Force, 2006), podemos definir la tuberculosis caprina como la enfermedad producida en esta especie animal por cualquiera de las especies bacterianas incluidas en el complejo Mycobacterium tuberculosis(MTBC) y n… Read more

34th Annual Congress of the European Society of Mycobacteriology

Communications in this event:

- Populational-based survey of molecular and epidemiological links between human and animal infections by Mycobacterium bovis

- Molecular identification of Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) members recovered from clinical samples in a hospital in a 3-year period

- European Union Reference Laboratory for Bovine Tuberculosis: an useful tool towards harmonization of protocols

- MIRU-VNTR Typing reveals high heterogeneity in a supposedly clonal group of Mycobacterium bovis