Ebola – the not so new virus
Ebola, now largely confined to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea claimed more than 9300 lives in West Africa in a year. I have selected key facts & insights from February’s national symposium “Ebola: The 21st century plague?" [Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK], held by international experts handling the epidemic. Covering the history of the disease, lessons learnt from 2014, and what strategies are in place for preventing future outbreaks, there was also an explanation finally as to why a rural outbreak became a regional urban epidemic, and an understanding of the complexity of medical volunteering and running ebola treatment centres.
Milk Quotas in European Union to Be Abolished after 31 Years
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, Editor of Dairy Science Abstracts Milk quotas in the European Union (EU) will be abolished from the 1 April 2015, exactly 31 years after its introduction. The Dairy Produce Quota Regulations were introduced by the European Economic Community (EEC) on the 2 April 1984 and were originally due to run until…
E-Learning Course on Bioinformatics of Animal Viruses
Nucleotide sequencing has become a very popular technique for diagnosis and characterization of pathogens and is accessible to most veterinary practices. A nucleotide sequence provides information on the nature of the pathogen, its source and its main characteristics such as strain, virulence and drug resistance. Bioinformatics provides tools to gather, store, and analyse these biological…
Animal Genetic Research Increasingly Focuses on Medical and Pharmaceutical Markets rather than on Food Production
According to a recent report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patenting activity in the field of animal genetics is focusing on medical and pharmaceutical markets, rather than animal products for human nutrition. A vast amount of scientific literature on animal genetic resources, transgenic animals and patents in this field is available in the CAB Direct database. The literature, which originates from more than 150 countries and is published in over 50 languages, is translated and indexed by CABI’s specialists for easy searching. The CAB Direct database currently contains more than 23,000 references with abstracts on animal genetic resources.
African Swine Fever on the Move – China, the EU and FAO Assessing Preparedness in East and Southeast Asia, the Region with >50% of the World Pig Population
By M Djuric, DVM African Swine Fever (ASF) continues to spread in traditionally endemic sub-Saharan Africa, but it is also expanding into previously ASF-free countries with a new front opening up along the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The risk of ASF entering China is of particular concern since the country keeps almost half of the…
Healthy soil: the foundation for healthy people and landscapes
On 5 December – World Soil Day – we celebrate the importance of soil as a foundation for healthy people and landscapes. As global population grows and places demands on agricultural outputs, we need to think carefully about how we use resources, including land. In the context of food security, simply increasing the amount of…
Ebola: a “filthy little virus” says Bob Geldorf
Following the launch of Band Aid 30 “Do they know its Christmas, Ebola song”, on X-factor [Sunday 16 November 2014], Bob Geldorf did the media rounds on the Monday morning including BBC 5live, to further drive home the message. People are dying from Ebola in West Africa because they are poor, living in countries without the health service infrastructure to stop it in its tracks, and “we are all just a plane ride away from it”. AS of that Monday, you can buy and download the song here via Amazon, Itunes and Google Play, or purchase the CD.
“A Wakeup Call” on Climate Change and Global Health
Climate change will affect human health through multiple routes according to speakers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) on Friday. They were there to launch “Climate Change and Global Health”, a book that analyses impacts on human health from heat waves, vector-borne diseases to conflict. Sir Andy Haines, Professor of Public…
The Cost of Pakistan’s Floods
IPCC Highlights Urgent Need for Greater Political Will Over Climate Change Readiness The last 2 weeks have seen the worst floods in Kashmir for almost 50 years. In Pakistan alone, more than 250 people have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. The waters currently extend well into the country’s most populous province, Punjab…
CABI Switzerland Scientists take home WSSA Award
Selected for their contribution to the Outstanding Paper in Invasive Plant Science and Management 2014, two CABI scientists took home this prestigious award at the Weed Science Society of America Annual Meeting in Vancouver. The event was held jointly with the Canadian Weed Science Society (CWSS) between 3-6 February 2014. Dr Hariet Hinz (left) and…