Rabies: dont ignore a bite or scratch.

 

 

 Knowing more about animal bites and rabies may save your life .    Knowing more about animal bites and rabies may save your life . 

 100% of human cases of rabies are preventable. 

 59,000 people die of rabies every year. 

95% of human rabies death occurs in Africa and Asia.

Global pet trade and spread of infectious disease.

The exotic animal trade is a multi-billion dollar industry, and the US is the world’s leading importer. While the US government is on the alert for well known animal-transmitted diseases, there is no mandatory health surveillance for most animals coming though US ports for commercial distribution.

 Live animal imports could bring new diseases into the US and infect endemic wildlife, with devastating consequences as, for example, was seen with the worldwide exposure of amphibians to Chytrid fungus which resulted in the decline of more than 200 species. 

 The legal commercial exotic animal trade is a booming enterprise that ships ornamental fish, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians around the world. 

These pets, livestock and other animals can carry unexpected infectious diseases from their homelands. If these non-native species escape or are released to the wild, they can create epidemics among susceptible endemic wildlife. 

 Four US agencies oversee live animal imports, but there is currently no systematic screening for disease in most live animal imports. The majority of animals processed through American ports for the pet industry fall under the aegis of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which has no authority to conduct health inspections. 

 Livestock imports are regulated by the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), with oversight by the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection. Species known to carry certain diseases (rabies in dogs, or tuberculosis in monkeys, for example) are monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

 According to a 2010 report from the US Government Accountability Office, a lack of interagency collaboration creates gaps in health surveillance that could leave native wildlife and people exposed to disease. 

These risks could potentially be enormous. A single fungal disease, Chytrid, for example, devastated more than 200 amphibian species worldwide.

 A related pathogen, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, originating with the Asian salamander trade, wreaked similar havoc on native populations in the Netherlands and Belgium. 

If this fungus gains a foothold in the US — a salamander biodiversity hotspot — experts fear entire species could be wiped out. continue

The rabies scourge, action plan.

Rabies scourge: Health ministry to vaccinate dogs across Ghana. In commemorating the world rabies day ,Health minister Alex Segbefia says his ministry will begin a nationwide vaccination of dogs against rabies. The ministry is preparing to roll out the programme in 2017 when it would have submitted a vaccination budget to the Finance ministry. The one world one health approach to eliminate the scourge of rabies is a great idea.

The fact that children are often victims of these scourge makes it even more important to forge an alliance to stop the virus. Dogs are the source of the vast majority of human rabies deaths, contributing up to 99% of all rabies transmissions to humans mostly in Asia and Africa. At least 40% of people who are bitten by suspect rabid animals are children under 15 years. 

The vaccination of dogs,cats and monkeys is a vital key to stop the scourge of the rabies virus,every responsible pet owner should vaccinate their pets against rabies. The annual vaccination of pets against rabies will prevent this threat to life of man and other animals which might act as carriers of the virus and further propagate the virus. 

Prevention by vaccination is much better and cheaper as lives will be saved because there is no cure for the disease. The war on rabies in Ghana is through a two pronged approach according to the health minister ;One is to increase the availability of vaccines to cure infected humans. 

The ministry has therefore ordered a new batch of vaccines .2) In a more pro-active approach to tackle rabies, the minister said “you must actually just vaccinate the dogs”. He said the ministry will go round region by region, identify and vaccinate dogs against rabies.He also said there is the need for a sensitization for dog-owners to tag their pets.  

 In Nigeria,the scourge can be prevented by education,mass vaccination of dogs and provision of affordable human diploid anti rabies vaccine.

 The enforcement of stray dog laws and dog licensing with tags will go a long way to check the scourge of the rabies virus. Pet owners should be held accountable for the health status of their pets,and must show documentation as regarding vaccination status. 

 Empowerment of animal control officers, especially at local government levels will help eliminate the scourge. 

The generation of adequate data as regarding number of dog per zone/local government/state will give a clear picture of our pet population, the area of concentration /major foci of these pets which will  assist in proper planning for budgeting for vaccination programmes. more #rabies #endrabies #savechildren #vaccinate #pets.

Yellow fever outbreak first reported in Angola kills 21 people in Congo.

Yellow fever outbreak that killed hundreds in Angola appears to be moving to neighboring Congo, where it has left at least 21 people dead. The Democratic Republic of Congo reported the deaths this week, the World Health Organization said in a statement that between January and March, at least 151 people were suspected of having the disease in the Congo. Some of the cases were detected in areas bordering Angola and "were imported" from there, according to the organization. At least 225 deaths have been reported in Angola as of this week, the nation's worst yellow fever outbreak in three decades. Most of the cases have been in the capital, Luanda. "The report of yellow fever infection in travelers returning from Angola ... highlights the risk of international spread," the WHO statement said. Yellow fever is transmitted by two types of mosquitoes, one of which is responsible for the Zika virus that has ravaged the Americas.The yellow fever virus is transmitted when a mosquito bites an infected monkey and then bites a human. Symptoms include fever, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite, and can be confused for malaria or other mosquito-borne illnesses. A small percentage of infected people experience a second phase within 24 hours of becoming ill. It comes with more advanced symptoms, including jaundice, hemorrhaging and bleeding from the eyes, nose and mouth. At least half of the patients who get the second phase of the disease die within 10 to 14 days. There is no treatment for yellow fever, but patients can get supportive care.

MONKEY MALARIA.

New research shows that Plasmodium knowlesi, a form of malaria common in monkeys in South East Asia, is capable of flourishing in people. The monkey malaria is just a few steps away from becoming a major human disease. Manoj Duraisingh, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the Chan School of Public Health at Harvard. Duraisingh is one of the authors of a new paper on P. knowlesi malaria published in Nature Communications. The team are really trying to understand whether what is normally thought to be a zoonotic disease( transmitted from animals to humans ) or is actually becoming something that is now transmitted between humans.There is growing concern that this simian parasite is adapting to infect humans more efficiently as stated in this new paper. In the last decade human cases of knowlesi malaria have been on the rise in parts of Southeast Asia. The So-called "monkey malaria" has become the most common form of malaria now detected in hospitals and clinics in Malaysian Borneo. Patients with knowlesi malaria suffer from intense bouts of fever and the symptoms are so similar to regular garden-variety malaria that it's often misdiagnosed as one of the five other human strains. The Plasmodium knowlesi parasites reside in forest-dwelling macaques as the parasites are well-adapted to the monkeys and the pests can reproduce easily in the macaques' blood. Mosquitoes that feed on the primates then spread the parasites to more and more monkeys. The knowlesi parasites and macaques were a closed system/end but as deforestation and the expansion of palm oil plantations in Malaysia that have cut into the monkeys' natural habitat, people and macaques have come in closer and more constant contact. This proximity has led to more people being bitten by mosquitoes laden with knowlesi parasites. "In many parts of Malaysia now it's the predominant malaria parasite that [doctors] actually see," Duraisingh says. The knowlesi parasite however generally doesn't reproduce as efficiently in human blood as in monkey blood because of a gene mutation — a complicated fork in the evolutionary tree — that happened 3 million years ago. Macaques got one gene. We got another. Our gene makes it much harder for knowlesi parasites to invade our red blood cells compared to those of macaques. This explains why most of the human cases of knowlesi malaria are fairly mild. Duraisingh says his team noticed a subset of malaria cases in Borneo that weren't mild at all,in these patients as the parasites multiply there are cyclical spikes of intense fever. Knowlesi malaria can be fatal but it does respond to standard malaria treatment if identified early. These intense cases of knowlesi malaria made Duraisingh and his colleagues think that there's something going on with the knowlesi parasite that might allow it to become more dangerous. In the lab Duraisingh found that the knowlesi parasite was able to find new ways to invade human red blood cells. They write: "It has been shown that P. knowlesi can expand its preferred host cell niche by invading older red blood cells and this is an important factor influencing adaptation of P. knowlesi to the human population."This new research shows that the knowlesi parasite is capable of adapting to life in a new host as demonstrated in the laboratory,that it can learn how to invade human blood cells quite quickly. The great concern is that as people, macaques and knowlesi-infected mosquitoes come into close contact, the parasite will increasingly adapt to the point where there's sustained transmission from human to human. When this happen, monkey malaria could become the next emerging infectious disease threat. Read more here;http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/08/473385975/monkey-malaria-creeps-closer-to-being-a-major-human-threat.

MONKEYS, BATS AND INFECTION IN MAN.

When it comes to spreading viruses, bats are thought to be among the worst. Now a new study of nearly 900 nonhuman primates in Bangladesh and Cambodia shows that macaques harbor more diverse astroviruses, which can cause infectious gastroenteritis or diarrhea in humans. A bat has bat astrovirus, but a monkey, you could have everything, a research scientist at the University of Washington National Primate Research Primate Center and a co-author of the study, published in PLOS Pathogens. This research, the scientists said, is the first to show evidence of human astroviruses in animals, and among the earliest to demonstrate that astroviruses can move between mammalian species .Astroviruses from a number of species, including human, bovine, bird, cow and dog, were detected in monkeys, This "challenges the paradigm that AstV (astrovirus) infection is species-specific," the authors wrote. It is still unknown whether these viruses are two-way and can be transmitted to humans. They did find evidence that, in monkeys, two species of astrovirus recombined.Knowing that nonhuman primates can harbor diverse astroviruses -- including novel, recombinant viruses that may be pathogenic and/or more efficiently transmitted -- highlights the importance of continued monitoring, the authors said. This is particularly true in countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, where macaques and humans live side-by-side."This study is an example of the concept of One Health for new viruses," noted author Stacey Schultz-Cherry at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. "This is an indication that we really need to think about animal partners in One Health." Astroviruses are most commonly associated with diarrhea. They can also cause clinical diseases such as nephritis, hepatitis and encephalitis. Astroviruses also can be asymptomatic, depending on the species, the researchers reported. Currently, the only treatment is oral rehydration. story source; science daily.

BATS @ RABIES!!!!

WORLD RABIES DAY.!!!

ONE WORLD,ONE HEALTH AND ONE MEDICINE. 

 The world rabies day on 28/9/15.# responsible pet owner # dog lovers; visit your vet!!!

RABIES AND THE MONKEY FACTOR.!!!

 

 Monkeys are playful creatures ,that many people keep as pets.The monkeys have found homes in several zoos, animal farms,circus and road shows,adding zest to the fun train. 

Monkeys have been domesticated over a period of years and have gradually made their way into man's life because of their fun gestures and intelligent disposition. Monkeys as sweet as they look and behave; they poise certain health risks to man. 

Monkeys have been linked to certain viruses and bacteria that are of importance to man among st them are ; rabies virus, herpes virus, Ebola virus ,monkeys are also know to be affected by other diseases in man such as tuberculosis, and amoebiasis. 

 Monkeys transfer pathogens to man through bites, salivary secretions,nasal secretions and fecal contamination. Monkeys generally have unsanitary habits,thus whatever pathogen they harbor in blood, feces and intestines they usually pass it to members of the family,thus monkeys are to be handled with care. Monkeys are know to have mood swings, playing at a time and the next moment scratching and biting ,this is the reason its not advisable to handle or give strange monkeys food. 

Monkeys that are gotten from the wild and domesticated pose the highest threat,hence precautions must be taken when importing /buying monkeys. 

 When bitten or scratched by a monkey the following steps must be followed; 1) wash the area with soap and water. 

2) wash under running water for 10-15 minutes. 

3) Apply disinfectant to site.

 4)seek medical attention immediately; rabies post exposure treatment and tetanus treatment are essential.

 Stay safe!!! avoid stray monkeys and dont pet or cuddle any monkey. 

when buying a monkey, verify source and ensure its vaccinated against rabies.

ANIMALS CAN DETECT CHARACTER OF HUMANS.

Animals-human relationship.Animals can easy detect humans that are mean from those that are loving and caring and respond to them accordingly.A recent document in NATURE,and reported by Helen Shen; capuchin monkey can detect meanies from kind, loving humans. Monkeys stay away from mean people. Capuchin monkeys show biases against humans who deny help to others. After watching humans interact, capuchin monkeys similar to this French Guiana male tended to shun persons who had acted selfishly. When does a monkey turn down a free treat? When it is offered by a selfish person, apparently. Given the choice between accepting goodies from helpful, neutral or unhelpful people, capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) tend to avoid individuals who refuse aid to others, according to a study published in Nature Communications “Humans can build up an impression about somebody just based on what we see,” says author James Anderson, a comparative psychologist at the University of Stirling, UK. The capuchin results suggest that this skill “probably extends to other species”, he says. Anderson chose to study capuchins because of their highly social and cooperative instincts. Monkeys in the study watched as a person either agreed or refused to help another person to open a jar containing a toy. Afterwards, both people offered a food pellet to the animal. The monkey was allowed to accept food from only one. When help was given, the capuchins showed little preference between the person requesting help and the one providing aid. But when help was denied, the seven monkeys tended to accept food less often from the unhelpful person than from the requester. Picking partners To try to understand the monkeys’ motivations, Anderson and his team tested different scenarios. The animals showed no bias against people who failed to help because they were busy opening their own jar. But they tended to avoid people who were available to help but did not do so. “Explicit refusal to help is a signal that you’re dangerous, that you’re negative,” says Kiley Hamlin, a developmental psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Similar biases have been shown in chimpanzees and in 3-month-old humans Hamlin says that the capuchin study suggests that being able to identify undesirable social partners has ancient evolutionary roots. Sarah Brosnan, an ethologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta, says that this type of study is usually done with great apes and “it’s really interesting to see this in a monkey”. The findings suggest that social inference may occur in animals that vary widely in brain size and cognitive ability, she explains. But Jennifer Vonk, a comparative psychologist at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and an author of the chimpanzee study, cautions against assuming that the monkeys understand much about human character. “You really don’t know what they’re inferring,” she says. In conditions in which both people were given jars, the biases against unhelpful people were weaker, she explains, so stronger tests are needed to rule out possible preferences of the monkeys for people who control objects of interest, such as toys. Still, Vonk says that she is interested in seeing whether other social animals — dogs, for instance — and even non-social species, such as bears, guide their behaviour by watching social interactions. Journal name: Nature