Vector borne and zoonotic diseases
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Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. · May 2013
Case ReportsRabid fox bites and human rabies in a village community in southern India: epidemiological and laboratory investigations, management and follow-up.
Human rabies transmitted from wild animals is rarely reported in endemic countries like India, where nearly 95% deaths occur due to bites from rabid dogs. In this paper, we report an incidence of rabid fox bites in a village in southern part of India involving 18 individuals, including 4 children. All people had category III exposures, including bites on the face and neck. ⋯ They were under regular follow-up and after nearly 2 years none have developed rabies. The partial Nucleoprotein (N) gene sequencing of the virus isolate from the patient who died of rabies had close homology with species I (prototype rabies) sequences available in GenBank and our own past isolates from dogs and humans, thus confirming that virus spillover from wildlife to domestic dogs continues to occur. This episode should prompt health authorities to focus more attention on training rural medical practitioners in state-of-the-art modern prophylactic measures.
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Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. · Apr 2013
The relevance of forest fragmentation on the incidence of human babesiosis: investigating the landscape epidemiology of an emerging tick-borne disease.
Babesiosis is an emerging arthropod-borne infection that has been increasing in incidence for the last decade in the northeastern United States. Babesiosis may share features of its landscape epidemiology with other arthropod-borne infections transmitted by the same tick vectors in similar geographic spaces. This study examined 11 years of surveillance data in New York State to measure the relationship between forest fragmentation and the incidence of human babesiosis. ⋯ Each 10-km increase in perimeter contact between forested land and developed land per county was associated with a 1.5% increase in babesiosis risk. Higher temperature was also strongly associated with increasing babesiosis risk (IRR=1.18, 95% CI 1.10-1.27; p<0.001), wherein each degree Celsius increase was associated with an 18% increase in babesiosis risk. While direct causal conclusions cannot be drawn from these data, these findings do identify a potentially important signal in the epidemiology of babesiosis and suggest that the underlying physical landscape may play a role in shaping points of contact between humans and tick vectors and the subsequent transmission of Babesia microti.
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Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. · Dec 2012
Chikungunya virus and the mosquito vector Aedes aegypti in New Caledonia (South Pacific Region).
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is transmitted to humans through the bite of Aedes mosquitoes. During the 2005-2006 epidemic that occurred in the Indian Ocean Islands, a viral strain harboring a substitution of an alanine to valine at position 226 (E1-A226V) of the E1 glycoprotein enhanced the transmissibility of CHIKV by Aedes albopictus. In March 2011, autochthonous transmission of CHIKV was reported in New Caledonia (NC), an island located in the southwest Pacific Ocean. ⋯ These results illustrate the threat of the spread of CHIKV in the South Pacific region. From February to June 2011 (the end of the alert), only 33 cases were detected. Implementation of drastic vector control measures and the occurrence of the cold season probably helped to limit the extent of the outbreak, but other factors may have also been involved and are discussed.
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Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. · Sep 2012
Serological evaluation of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in humans with high-risk professions living in enzootic regions of Isfahan province of Iran and genetic analysis of circulating strains.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a zoonotic viral disease that is asymptomatic in infected livestock, but causes a serious threat to humans with a mortality rate up to 50%. Although the CCHF virus (CCHFV) is often transmitted by ticks, livestock-to-human and human-to-human transmission also occurs. In the current study, we focused on CCHF in the province of Isfahan, located in the center of Iran and deemed to be the second most infected province. ⋯ Nucleotide sequence of the S-segment revealed that the different isolates were closely related to each other, with nucleotide sequence identities higher than 98%. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that a variant isolate clustered with the Iraq strain. This high proportion of IgG-positive sera and nearly high proportion of infected ticks increases the risk of CCHF outbreaks in the province and probably posits a great danger to other provinces.
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Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. · Sep 2012
First serologic evidence for the circulation of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus in Romania.
Serum samples from sheep in localities situated in the county of Tulcea, Northern Dobrogea, were tested with an IgG sandwich ELISA using a recombinant Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) antigen. In all, 131 sera out of 471 tested (27.8%) had IgG antibodies specific to CCHFV. This is the first evidence for the circulation of CCHFV virus in Romania.