Bluetongue anguish for Dutch farmers
One sheep dribbles, another limps, a third can barely stand: the bluetongue virus is causing havoc for Dutch farmer Erik van Norel, who thought he had seen the back of it.
One sheep dribbles, another limps, a third can barely stand: the bluetongue virus is causing havoc for Dutch farmer Erik van Norel, who thought he had seen the back of it.
Agriculture
Aug 30, 2024
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At first glance, it looks like an unassuming farm. Cows are scattered across fenced-in fields. A milking barn sits in the distance with a tractor parked alongside. But the people who work there are not farmers, and other ...
Agriculture
Aug 23, 2024
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22
In recent years, public health measures, surveillance, and vaccination have helped bring about significant progress in reducing the impact of seasonal flu epidemics, caused by human influenza viruses A and B. However, a possible ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 19, 2024
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154
Researchers from Kyushu University have discovered that blowflies, a family of flies strongly attracted to decaying flesh and feces, are carrying the bird flu virus in southern Japan. Their findings, published in Scientific ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 1, 2024
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95
The New Jersey Conservation Foundation, a major environmental group working within the state, is pleading with wildlife officials not to remove bald eagles from the endangered species list as planned, saying a virus that's ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 1, 2024
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1
Animal challenge studies completed by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists show that infecting dairy cows with the H5N1 virus in a laboratory setting can trigger clinical signs of disease similar to those of naturally ...
Veterinary medicine
Jul 29, 2024
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2
In a new study led by UNC Charlotte researchers from the Center for Computational Intelligence to Predict Health and Environmental Risks (CIPHER) and the North Carolina Research Campus at Kannapolis, University scholars have ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 24, 2024
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20
Anchoring the boat in a sandbar, research scientist Morgan Gilmour steps into the shallows and is immediately surrounded by sharks. The warm waters around the tropical island act as a reef shark nursery, and these baby biters ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 10, 2024
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9
As highly pathogenic avian influenza has spread in dairy herds across the U.S., the virus is being detected in raw milk. A new study by a broad team of researchers at Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 9, 2024
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68
US officials on Wednesday reported the country's fourth human case of bird flu linked to the current outbreak of the virus in dairy cattle.
Agriculture
Jul 4, 2024
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5
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses), that affects birds and mammals. The name influenza comes from the Italian influenza, meaning "influence" (Latin: influentia). The most common symptoms of the disease are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort. Fever and coughs are the most frequent symptoms. In more serious cases, influenza causes pneumonia, which can be fatal, particularly for the young and the elderly. Although it is often confused with other influenza-like illnesses, especially the common cold, influenza is a much more severe disease than the common cold and is caused by a different type of virus. Influenza may produce nausea and vomiting, particularly in children, but these symptoms are more common in the unrelated gastroenteritis, which is sometimes called "stomach flu" or "24-hour flu".
Typically, influenza is transmitted through the air by coughs or sneezes, creating aerosols containing the virus. Influenza can also be transmitted by bird droppings, saliva, nasal secretions, feces and blood. Infection can also occur through contact with these body fluids or through contact with contaminated surfaces. Airborne aerosols have been thought to cause most infections, although which means of transmission is most important is not absolutely clear. Influenza viruses can be inactivated by sunlight, disinfectants and detergents. As the virus can be inactivated by soap, frequent hand washing reduces the risk of infection.
Influenza spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands annually — millions in pandemic years. Three influenza pandemics occurred in the 20th century and killed tens of millions of people, with each of these pandemics being caused by the appearance of a new strain of the virus in humans. Often, these new strains appear when an existing flu virus spreads to humans from other animal species, or when an existing human strain picks up new genes from a virus that usually infects birds or pigs. An avian strain named H5N1 raised the concern of a new influenza pandemic, after it emerged in Asia in the 1990s, but it has not evolved to a form that spreads easily between people. In April 2009 a novel flu strain evolved that combined genes from human, pig, and bird flu, initially dubbed "swine flu", emerged in Mexico, the United States, and several other nations. WHO officially declared the outbreak to be a "pandemic" on June 11, 2009.
Vaccinations against influenza are usually given to people in developed countries and to farmed poultry. The most common human vaccine is the trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV) that contains purified and inactivated material from three viral strains. Typically, this vaccine includes material from two influenza A virus subtypes and one influenza B virus strain. The TIV carries no risk of transmitting the disease, and it has very low reactivity. A vaccine formulated for one year may be ineffective in the following year, since the influenza virus evolves rapidly, and new strains quickly replace the older ones. Antiviral drugs can be used to treat influenza, with neuraminidase inhibitors being particularly effective.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA