Research

A useful tool for the safe diagnosis and control of the two main pandemics of the XXI century: COVID-19 and African Swine Fever disease

PLoS ONE publish this investigation article

The COVID-19 pandemic and the disease triggered by the African Swine Fever virus are currently two of the main problems regarding public and animal health, respectively. Although vaccination seems to be the ideal tool for controlling these diseases, it has several limitations. Therefore, early detection of the pathogen is critical in order to apply preventive and control measures. Real-time PCR is the main technique used for the detection of both viruses, which requires previous processing of the infectious material. If the potentially infected sample is inactivated at the time of sampling, th… Leer más

A Maximum Entropy Species Distribution Model to Estimate the Distribution of Bushpigs on Madagascar and Its Implications for African Swine Fever

Investigation published in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases

Bushpigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) play a major role in the socio-ecosystem of Madagascar, particularly in rural areas. They are largely hunted by rural populations as a major source of income and protein. They can also represent a potential source of pathogens for domestic animals and people. For example, it is hypothesized that bushpigs might compromise African swine fever (ASF) eradication programs by sporadically transmitting the virus to domestic pigs. However, available knowledge on the distribution of bushpigs in Madagascar is limited. In this study, we estimated the distribution of bush… Leer más

Mycobacterium bovis in Egyptian mongoose, Spain

Zoonoses and Public Health publish this investigation article

Tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis and other related mycobacteria has been reported in a wide range of mammals worldwide. In the case of the Herpestidae family, Mycobacterium mungi and M. bovis, both belonging to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex, have been reported in banded mongooses (Mungos mungo) in Africa and in Egyptian mongooses (Herpestes ichneumon) in Portugal, respectively. Thus, we hypothesized that Tuberculosis may occur in Egyptian mongooses from Spain. Twenty-five found dead Egyptian mongooses were necropsied in order to detect macroscopic TB-compatible lesions and m… Leer más

- Detectan por primera vez en España tuberculosis en el meloncillo: “Es un hospedador accidental” - eldiario.es

- Confirmada por primera vez la presencia de la bacteria de la tuberculosis en meloncillos en España - interempresas.net

- Los meloncillos también transmiten la tuberculosis: detectan el primer ejemplar contagiado en España - revistajaraysedal.es

- Se detecta por primera vez tuberculosis en meloncillos en España - animalshealth.es

Development of an Effective Oral Vaccine Dissemination Strategy against Classical Swine Fever for Wild Boar in Gifu Prefecture, Japan

Investigation article published in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases

In September 2018, classical swine fever (CSF) reemerged in Japan after more than a quarter of a century. After the first notification on a pig farm, wild boars positive for CSF were found continuously in the surrounding area. Gifu was the first prefecture in Japan to disseminate oral vaccines to wild boars in March 2019, with vaccines spread to approximately 14,000 sites between 2019 and 2020. While these diligent measures seemed to have shown some effectiveness, several vaccine spray sites remained without wild boar emergence. Based on the vaccine dissemination records from these periods, th… Leer más

Accuracy of Tests for Diagnosis of Animal Tuberculosis: Moving Away from the Golden Calf (and towards Bayesian Models)

Investigation published in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases

Te last decades have seen major eforts to develop new and improved tools to maximize our ability to detect tuberculosis-infected animals and advance towards the objective of disease control and ultimately eradication. Nevertheless, there is still uncertainty regarding test performance due to the wide range of specifcity and especially sensitivity estimates published in the scientifc literature. Here, we performed a systematic review of the literature on studies that evaluated the performance of tuberculosis diagnostic tests used in animals through Bayesian Latent Class Models (BLCMs), which do… Leer más

A tool to enhance antimicrobial stewardship using similarity networks to identify antimicrobial resistance patterns across farms

Scientific reports publish this investigation article

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the major challenges of the century and should be addressed with a One Health approach. This study aimed to develop a tool that can provide a better understanding of AMR patterns and improve management practices in swine production systems to reduce its spread between farms. We generated similarity networks based on the phenotypic AMR pattern for each farm with information on important bacterial pathogens for swine farming based on the Euclidean distance. We included seven pathogens: Actinobacillus suis, Bordetella bronchiseptica, Escherichia coli, Glae… Leer más

Differences in skin test reactions to official and defined antigens in guinea pigs exposed to non-tuberculous and tuberculous bacteria

Investigation article published in Scientific reports

The single and comparative intradermal tuberculin tests (SITT and CITT) are official in vivo tests for bovine tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis using bovine and avian purified protein derivatives (PPD-B and PPD-A). Infection with bacteria other than Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) can result in nonspecific reactions to these tests. We evaluated the performance of the skin test with PPDs and new defined antigens in the guinea pig model. A standard dose (SD) of Rhodococcus equi, Nocardia sp., M. nonchromogenicum, M. monacense, M. intracellulare, M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis, M. avium subs… Leer más