hacked by p@3t_b@y for turks

Wildlife Veterinary Investigation Centre

Simpson VR.

Wildlife Veterinary Investigation Centre, Jollys Bottom Farm, Station Road, Chacewater, Truro, Cornwall TR4 8PB, UK. wildlife.vic@rmplc.co.uk

This review aims to illustrate the extent to which wildlife act as reservoirs of infectious agents that cause disease in domestic stock, pet and captive animals and humans. More than 40 agents are described. In the case of some of these, e.g. Cryptosporidium spp., Escherichia coli O157 and malignant catarrhal fever, the current evidence is that wildlife either does not act as a reservoir or is of limited importance. However, in the case of many important diseases, including bovine tuberculosis, Weil’s disease, Lyme disease, avian influenza, duck virus enteritis and louping ill, wild animals are considered to be the principal source of infection. Wildlife may be involved in the epidemiology of other major diseases, such as neosporosis, Johne’s disease, mucosal disease and foot and mouth disease, but further studies are needed. The UK would benefit from a more positive approach to the study of wildlife and the infections they harbour.

Copyright 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
http://tinyurl.com/2tulbg

Ehrlichiosis (HGE) in UK ticks, Public Health Laboratory, Swansea
Dec 18 2005, 12:21 PM

Guy E, Tasker S, Joynson DH.

Public Health Laboratory, Singleton Hospital, Swansea.

Nymphal Ixodes ricinus ticks collected from woodland areas in South Wales, UK, were tested using the polymerase chain reaction for the presence both of the causative agent of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE) and Borrelia burgdorferi. Twenty-two of 60 (37%) ticks were found positive in the PCR for B. burgdorferi and 4/60 (7%) for the HGE agent. One tick was found positive both for B. burgdorferi and HGE agent. Our findings imply the presence of the HGE agent in UK ticks and the finding of a tick apparently containing both pathogens underlines the potential for concurrent infection with HGE agent and B. burgdorferi to occur after a single tick-bite. Based on our observations, we conclude that there may be a need to consider a range of pathogens both in laboratory investigation and clinical management of suspected tick-borne disease in the UK, particularly where there is a clinical presentation atypical of Lyme borreliosis alone.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10030718?dopt=Abstract

Pudney M, Gray JS.

Department of Molecular Sciences, Wellcome Foundation Limited, Beckenham, Kent, U.K.

This study demonstrates the activity of the hydroxynaphthoquinone (HNQ), atovaquone, against Babesia divergens, the cause of a rare but lethal form of human babesiosis. In vitro studies showed that unlike other anti-malarial drugs, the HNQs studied have a high level of anti-babesial activity and atovaquone was more active than imidocarb, the most effective compound used so far for human B. divergens babesiosis and also used routinely for the treatment of bovine babesiosis. Atovaquone also proved to be extremely active against B. divergens in gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus). Acute fulminating infections were effectively treated with as little as 1.0 mg/kg with increasing effectiveness up to 10 mg/kg, which compares well with the activity of imidocarb. Although immunosuppression with dexamethasone slowed the decline of parasitemias after treatment with atovaquone, gerbil survival was unaffected. Pretreatment of gerbils with 4 daily low doses of atovaquone did not have any effect on the development of subsequent infections. However, if treatment was continued after infection, daily doses as low as 0.5 mg/kg effectively suppressed the parasites.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9105316?dopt=Abstract

Royal Veterinary College, London

Naturally acquired babesiosis in a reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) herd in Great Britain.

Langton C, Gray JS, Waters PF, Holman PJ.

Department of Veterinary Pathology, Royal Veterinary College, London, UK.

A provisional diagnosis of babesiosis was made in a reindeer herd in Scotland when seven animals died during 1997 and 1998. Additional clinical cases occurred, but the animals recovered after treatment. Thirty-one reindeer from the herd were tested for the prevalence of exposure to Babesia by the indirect fluorescent antibody test using a bovine isolate of Babesia divergens that had been passaged through gerbils. Infection rates were determined by Giemsa-stained blood smears. In addition, molecular identification of the infecting Babesiasp. was undertaken using SSU rRNA gene sequence analysis. It is likely that the organism causing babesiosis in this reindeer herd is B. divergens.

http://tinyurl.com/2h9rwu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Scientists Show that Tick-Borne Flaviviruses Use a Novel Mechanism to Evade Host Defenses
Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have made the surprising discovery that flaviviruses, which cause such serious diseases as West Nile fever, yellow fever and forms of encephalitis, evade immune system defenses in different ways depending on whether they are transmitted by mosquitoes or ticks. This finding could lead to new approaches to developing vaccines and treatments against these illnesses.

Flaviviruses exact an enormous toll in terms of illness and death worldwide, notes NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. Because this is a relatively new field of study, everything we learn about how these viruses operate is significant. This elegant work opens an array of new questions and research opportunities to pursue as we strive to better understand this family of viruses and develop countermeasures against them.

Mosquito-borne flaviviruses include West Nile virus, yellow fever virus, dengue virus and Japanese encephalitis virus; the less-familiar tick-borne flaviviruses are just as serious, causing tick-borne encephalitis or hemorrhagic fevers. Currently, a Japanese encephalitis outbreak is raging in India and Nepal and has killed more than 1,000 people. In Europe and Southeast Asia, tick-borne encephalitis typically results in more than 10,000 patient visits to hospitals annually and has a fatality rate of up to 25 percent in some regions. Viruses that cause encephalitis lead to inflammation of the brain. Hemorrhagic fevers are viral infections that cause capillaries to burst, leading to unusual bleeding on or under the skin or in various organs.

The study released this week online in the Journal of Virology describes how a single virus protein - NS5 - from the tick-borne Langat flavivirus counteracts the natural ability of interferon to combat the virus. Langat virus was originally isolated in the 1950s in Malaysia and Thailand. Langat virus can infect people following a tick bite, but there are no cases of natural disease recorded. In the 1970s Langat was briefly used as a live vaccine against more virulent tick-borne encephalitis viruses in Russia but caused encephalitis complications in about 1 of every 10,000 people.

Interferon, the body’s first defense against many viruses, triggers a cascade of immune defenses. According to researchers at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, MT, NS5 blocks the body’s attempt to signal for immune defenses, preventing the immune system from both stopping the spread of virus and helping the body recover from infection.

Interferon is so critical for recovery from these infections that it is being tested in clinical trials to treat infection with various flaviviruses. But the treatment appears to fail in about half of cases. Dengue virus, West Nile virus and yellow fever virus have a protein called NS4B that prevents interferon from functioning properly. It was thought that the tick-borne flaviviruses would use the same protein, so the NS5 finding was unexpected.

The RML group, directed by Marshall Bloom, M.D., chose Langat virus because it is spread by ticks - a trademark of RML expertise - and because it possesses the same survival mechanisms as the more serious tick-borne encephalitis, Omsk hemorrhagic fever (found in western Siberia) and the closely related Kyasanur forest disease (found in western India).

These diseases are spread by the same tick that carries Lyme disease in the U.S., says Dr. Bloom. So, the fact that West Nile virus first appeared or emerged in the U.S. in 1999 should warn us about the potential for tick-borne flaviviruses to emerge on other continents. In preparation for such a development, Dr. Fauci notes that two other NIAID laboratories have similar flavivirus studies under way, and the three groups are building on the discoveries of each other.

Dr. Bloom says that all flaviviruses have a similar genomic structure, and many scientists thought they would use the same survival mechanism and respond to the same vaccines and therapies, but the RML work shows otherwise.

NS5 prevents interferon from doing its sentry job and allows the virus to take over cells, says Dr. Bloom. This is the first definitive study that dissects where the failure occurs in the signaling pathway, and then identifies some of the interacting partners in the cell and virus. Prior to this work, Dr. Bloom says, scientists knew only that NS5 helped tick-borne flaviviruses replicate.

RML’s Sonja Best, Ph.D., who spearheaded the Langat virus work, says the group will continue to study tick-borne flaviviruses by examining the role and location of NS5 in Powassan virus. Powassan virus, found in North America, Russia, China and Southeast Asia, rarely infects people but is potentially fatal. If the research group can track the movement of NS5 in Powassan-infected cells and learn how it interacts with other proteins to block immune defenses, that would provide a target for therapeutics to counteract tick-borne flaviviruses, says Dr. Best.

News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.

NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation’s Medical Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
Reference: S. Best et al. Inhibition of interferon-stimulated JAK-STAT signaling by a tick-borne Flavivirus and identification of NS5 as an interferon antagonist. Journal of Virology. DOI: 10.1128/JVI.79.20

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/sep2005/niaid-28.htm

The threat from our pets

Pet passports let in diseases
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

The relaxation of rules designed to protect the UK against rabies has opened the way to the entry of other animal diseases.

The Pet Travel Scheme (Pets) allows owners of companion animals to take them in and out of Britain.

But animals coming from exotic disease areas abroad are now bringing new problems with them.

Veterinary surgeons say more checks are needed to see what risk they represent.

They report their concerns in the Veterinary Record, the journal of the British Veterinary Association (BVA).

A team of UK and French vets analysed diagnostic data from imported animals which were found to be sick between April 2001 and July 2002.

They also reviewed data from animals quarantined during that time (quarantine is obligatory for animals from countries not included in the Pets scheme).

The team tested samples from 67 dogs and three cats, most of which had entered the UK under Pets: 14 of the dogs and one cat had been in quarantine.

High infection incidence

Blood samples were tested for three exotic diseases: babesiosis, leishmaniasis and ehrlichiosis.

Babesiosis is a severe tick-borne disease caused by various types of babesia, a microscopic parasite that infects red blood cells.

In humans it is rare, but potentially fatal. Babesiosis is a common infection in animals.

Leishmaniasis is a potentially contagious disease in dogs and cats. It is caused by a parasite transmitted by sandflies. It can affect humans, but most people are unlikely to become ill.

Ehrlichiosis, another tick-borne disease affecting dogs, can cause anaemia, decreased resistance to disease, infection and abnormal bleeding.

None of the cats showed signs of any of the diseases, but of the dogs 17 of the 53 that had entered under Pets and seven of the 14 that entered the UK through quarantine had one or more of the three pathogens.

Babesiosis was the most commonly diagnosed illness, and a total of ten dogs was confirmed with one of two strains of the disease. Several dogs showed evidence of more than one pathogen.

Threat from elsewhere

Five had travelled from France under Pets, two more under Pets from Thailand through Germany and from Japan, and three had been quarantined, two from Hong Kong and one from South Africa.

Five of the six dogs with ehrlichiosis had come from countries not included in the Pets scheme.

Of the dogs with leishmaniasis, four had travelled from Spain: the vets say this probably underestimates the number of infected animals entering the UK under Pets.

They say their findings “indicate the significance of these infections as a health and welfare issue for both the animals and their owners.

Knowledge gap

“Should introduction of the appropriate vectors occur or alternative methods of transmission evolve, there is risk of extension of disease into dog, cat, human or wildlife populations which have not travelled.

“Larger targeted surveillance schemes are required to further evaluate and monitor the risk involved.”

The Pets scheme was introduced in February 2000. It allows animals from an approved list of countries to avoid undergoing six-month quarantine periods.

It applies at the moment to animals travelling from most of Europe, from North America and from a number of long-haul rabies-free countries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2822759.stm

Dec 5 2005, 12:20 AM

Lyme disease is a vector-borne, multisystem inflammatory disease caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, which is transmitted to humans by the bite of ticks of the Ixodes ricinus complex. B. burgdorferi can be divided into at least 11 species and Borrelia garinii is one of these. When Borrelia burgdorferi was originally described it was believed to be the only species responsible for Lyme borreliosis. However, in the last ten years reciprocal hybridization of a large number of strains clearly demonstrated that the genetic diversity of this species was greater than expected. Of the 11 different species, only Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, B. garinii , and B. afzelii are undoubtedly involved in clinical cases of Lyme borreliosis. Neurological symptoms seem to be the commonest manifestation in western Europe and B. garinii is most frequently associated with these cases.

Borrelia garinii is one of two major strains found in Europe. It usually causes Lyme Disease symptoms of the neurological kind, such as extreme back- and leg-pains, meningitis and partial facial paralysis, Lyme arthritis due to B garinii may be associated in susceptible hosts with amoxicillin resistance or treatment resistance

There has been considerable speculation concerning possible differences in the ecology of the genospecies and most data suggest that B. afzelii is associated with rodents and B. garinii with birds. However, recently B. garinii has also been identified in tissues taken from rodents and at least one strain of B. garinii (serotype 4), rarely found in ticks but associated with neuroborreliosis, appears to be specific for rodents. In one study of double infections in ticks B. valaisiana was most often associated with B. garinii and in another study both these species were shown to be transmitted from blackbirds (Turdus merula) to ticks.

Borrelia garinii is Gram-negative and helical in shape.
Hierarchy Description:

* Genus: Borrelia
* Species: garinii
* Strain: PBi
Genome accession number
EMBL reference

* Taxonomy: 290434
References:
Clin. Rheumatol. 21(4):330-4. 2002

Ann. Rheum. Dis. 60 : 284-286 (2001)

http://www.pasteur.fr/recherche/borrelia/Welcome.html

http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/byname/lyme-disease.htm

http://vie.dis.strath.ac.uk/vie/LymeEU/bio…ia-strains.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~webmedic4u/lyme.html

http://textbookofbacteriology.net/Lyme.html

http://www.ebi.ac.uk/2can/genomes/bacteria.html

By Dr. Steven E. Phillips
Friday, December 2, 2005

A Florida State quarterback is found half-naked and disoriented in downtown Tallahassee. Pop singer Daryl Hall cancels part of his national concert tour. Author Amy Tan is writing a new book about it.

The picture is clear: Lyme disease has hit the front burner.

Lyme disease is a major public health problem and growing crisis. It’s the most prevalent bug-borne illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, new cases are reported in about 20,000 people yearly and this number represents a 10-fold underestimate.

Lyme disease is caused by a complex bacterial agent carried and spread by ticks. The Lyme bacteria have the ability to evade immune destruction, entrench themselves deep within tissues and migrate throughout the body with impunity causing a multi-system illness that can be baffling to many physicians.

The result is that one tiny tick bite can cause innumerable symptoms running the gamut from muscle and joint pain to heart disease to neurological and even psychiatric illness. Lyme patients may be misdiagnosed as having other serious diseases such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and psychiatric disorders. The take-home message is Lyme disease may be hard to diagnose and difficult, if not impossible, to fully eradicate if not caught early.

Why is that?

First, there is no single reliable diagnostic laboratory test. The common two-tiered blood test cannot be solely relied upon for diagnosis. The initial ELISA screening test can give up to 50 percent false negative results, and just as disheartening, many laboratories interpret the second Western Blot test by highly restrictive CDC criteria that miss many cases.

Better tests are described in the medical literature, but haven’t seen the light of day. So some patients seek more sophisticated testing by approved reference laboratories - labs within a single state that get samples from around the country - but which often don’t take their insurance companies and frequently pay for their tests out-of-pocket. Furthermore, a person with Lyme disease may be co-infected with other organisms, and “co-infections” often require different antibiotic therapy compared to Lyme.

Second, there is no universally accepted treatment. During chronic infection, the organism burrows deep into tissues that some antibiotics can reach only marginally. This is but one of many reasons why a two-to-four-week treatment cannot eliminate chronic infection.

The consensus opinion of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society is that an individualized treatment approach is necessary based on clinical judgment.

ILADS is a multi-specialty medical society comprised of virtually all sub-specialists who treat Lyme disease, including infectious disease specialists, neurologists, rheumatologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists and internal medicine physicians. We’ve published diagnostic and treatment guidelines in peer reviewed infectious disease medical literature, which stand in stark contrast to the guidelines of some infectious disease specialists who reject voluminous medical data documenting persistent infection and co-infection.

What should be done?

We, the clinical doctors who man the frontlines of treatment, extend an olive branch to our colleagues with divergent opinions to work together to develop practical diagnostic and treatment protocols.

We believe it is essential for patients with Lyme disease symptoms to be tested for multiple tick-borne disorders. We know better tests exist and recommend the entire medical community push for them.

We encourage the education of all medical personnel about the array of Lyme disease symptoms and its related infections in order to increase the number of health care providers who can recognize and treat these illnesses.

In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, activists screamed for attention to get medical care. We hope Lyme patients are not forced to follow the same path, but we will not be content until Lyme disease is yesterday’s news.

Physician Steven E. Phillips of Wilton, Conn., is president of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.
http://www2.townonline.com/brewster/opinio…rticleid=381913