Exposure to pig farms and manure fertilizers associated with MRSA infections.

Exposure to pig farms and manure fertilizers associated with MRSA infections.Researchers have found an association between living in proximity to high-density livestock production and community-acquired infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA. Researchers from Geisinger's Henry Hood Center for Health Research and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found an association between living in proximity to high-density livestock production and community-acquired infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Their analysis concluded that approximately 11 percent of community-acquired MRSA and soft tissue infections in the study population could be attributed to crop fields fertilized with swine manure. The study examine the association between high-density livestock operations and manure-applied crop fields and MRSA infections in the community.

Workers at industrial farms carry drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock.

Workers at industrial farms carry drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock. A new study found drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock in the noses of industrial livestock workers in North Carolina but not in the noses of antibiotic-free livestock workers. The drug-resistant bacteria examined were Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as "Staph," which include the well-known bug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).New Staph strains are emerging in people who have close contact with livestock animals and for this reason have been given the name livestock-associated Staph. While everyone in the study had direct or indirect contact with livestock, only industrial workers carried antibiotic-resistant Staph with multiple genetic characteristics linked to livestock. Many industrial livestock operations raise animals in large conferment buildings and use antibiotics, including non-therapeutically in animals' feed and water to promote their growth. Previous studies have detected strains of drug-resistant S. aureus from livestock, first among farm workers, and subsequently in hospital and community settings in Europe. S. aureus can cause a range of illnesses in humans, from minor to life-threatening skin, bloodstream, respiratory, urinary and surgical site infections. Like most illnesses caused by bacteria, S. aureus infections are treated with antibiotics. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some Staph cannot be killed by antibiotics, meaning they are resistant.

Rise of ampicillin resistance began years before human use.

The rise of ampicillin resistance began years before human use,and likely triggered by overuse of penicillin s in agriculture in the 1950s. Bacteria that can pass on genes resistant to ampicillin, one of the most commonly used antibiotics today, emerged several years before the widespread use of this antibiotic in humans, according to new research published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Low doses of penicillin routinely fed to livestock in the 1950s in North America and Europe may have encouraged antibiotic-resistant bacteria to evolve and spread, report scientists. Bacteria that can pass on genes resistant to ampicillin, one of the most commonly used antibiotics today, emerged several years before the widespread use of this antibiotic in humans, according to new research. Molecular analysis of historical samples of Salmonella by researchers at the Institut Pasteur (Paris, France) suggests that the ampicillin resistance gene (blaTEM-1) emerged in humans in the 1950s, several years before the antibiotic was released onto the pharmaceutical market. The findings also indicate that a possible cause was the common practice of adding low doses of penicillin to animal feed in the 1950s and 60s. The study comes just weeks after WHO called for the end to routine antibiotic use to promote growth and prevent disease in healthy farm animals.

Reverse zoonosis. How human pathogens affect animals.

Reverse zoonosis. The fact that diseases can pass from humans to animals is, perhaps, not such a surprise. An estimated 61.6 percent of human pathogens are regarded as multiple species pathogens and are able to infect a range of animals.

 Also, over 77 percent of pathogens that infect livestock are multiple species pathogens. One of the earliest studies demonstrating reverse zoonosis was conducted in 1988 and looked at dermatophytes - fungi that cause superficial infections of the skin, nails, and hair - including Microsporum and Trichophyton.

The authors found that these fungi could be transmitted from animal to animal, human to human, animal to human, and human to animal.

 From 2000, studies began to emerge investigating the ability of certain parasites to pass from human to animal, including Giardia duodenalis (the parasite responsible of giardiasis), and Cryptosporidium parvum (a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal disease cryptosporidiosis) A CASE OF .Reverse zoonosis. 

 A study, published in the journal Veterinary Microbiology in 2006, looked at methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in pets and its transmission between humans and animals.The paper mentions a specific case in which a couple was repeatedly infected with MRSA.

The re-infections only stopped once their dog was identified as the source and treated. It is presumed that the dog was initially infected by the couple and then passed the infection back to them each time they had been successfully treated.

 The emergence of MRSA in household pets is of concern in terms of animal health and the potential for animals to act as sources of infection or colonization of human contacts.Reverse zoonosis.

 A paper, published in 2004, describes the case of a 3-year-old Yorkshire terrier who arrived at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine with anorexia, vomiting, and a persistent cough. After running a barrage of tests - including, sadly, an eventual postmortem - the authors concluded that it had contracted tuberculosis (TB) (Mycobacterium tuberculosis).

The dog's owner had been receiving treatment for TB for 6 months. This was the first documented transmission of TB from human to canine.

 In 2009, the first recorded case of fatal human-to-cat transmission of the H1N1 flu virus occurred in Oregon. The owner of the cat had a severe case of influenza and had to be taken to the hospital. Her cat - an indoor cat with no exposure to other people or animals - later died of pneumonia caused by an H1N1 infection.
Details of the case were published in the journal Veterinary Pathology. In 2011 and 2012, researchers identified more than 13 cats and one dog with pandemic H1N1 infection that appeared to have come from human contact. Interestingly, the animals' symptoms were similar to those experienced by human carriers - rapidly developing respiratory disease, a lack of appetite and, in some cases, death.

Re-emerging zoonosis: Fascioliasis.

Re-emerging zoonosis are zoonotic infections that have been recognized before and has protocol measures of prevention and treatment in place,but now these infections have higher incidences and wider geographic scope.


Fascioliasis is one of such re-emerging zoonotic infections that was common in developing nations of Africa and sparse dispersion in America,Europe and Asia.

Today this infection is widespread and with higher prevalence. The food-borne trematodes causing infection in man are Fasciola hepatica and gigantica are the 2 most common in the tropics. Transmission is by ingestion of flukes in under-cooked or poorly processed liver.

 Drinking water contaminated with the flukes and eating water plants or vegetables washed with such water. Accidental ingestion of flukes from infected liver as shown below is very common in developing countries.

 Butchers usually cut up affected liver in strips to cut out the white tracts formed by the flukes. This is usually called Eedo oni ishan, they typically sell to food vendors and people who want meat that you chew for long before swallowing. The next time you visit your butcher and observe livers cut up with tracts,do not buy.

Acute phase. when the immature worms penetrate the intestinal wall and the peritoneum, the protective membrane surrounding the internal organs .
They puncture the liver's surface and eat their way through its tissues until they reach the bile ducts. This invasion kills the liver cells and causes intense internal bleeding.

Typical symptoms include fever, nausea, a swollen liver, skin rashes and extreme abdominal pain and inflammation. Chronic phase.
The chronic phase begins when the worms reach the bile ducts, where they mature and start producing eggs.
These eggs are released into the bile and reach the intestine, where they are evacuated in faeces, thereby completing the transmission cycle.

Symptoms include intermittent pain, jaundice and anaemia. Pancreatitis and gallstones. Patients with chronic infections experience hardening of the liver (fibrosis) as a result of the long-term.

 The fluke sometimes migrates from the liver to the eye and nervous tissue.

The migration causes neurological signs such as tremors/seizures .Ocular lesions arise from migration to the eyes, where there is occasional moving out of fluke from orbit.

Agribusiness: Agricollege makes money from yoghurt.

Agribusiness: Agri-college makes money from yoghurt. Bukura college starts to produce its own milk products after years of focusing on training only.

The college has set up a milk processing plant to make yoghurt, mala and pasteurised milk as it seeks to turn around its fortunes and train all-round agri-entrepreneurs.

FUNAAB trains extension officers in cassava development.

FUNAAB trains extension officers in cassava development.The Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Prof. Felix Salako, has joined the call on the need for the nation to move away from its overdependence on oil resources and embrace agriculture as a sustainable route to national development. The vice-chancellor stated this while declaring open the facilitation and communication skills training programme that was organised in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, by the Cassava, Adding Value for Africa II Nigeria Project, for Agricultural Development Programmes’ extension officers and procurement personnel of the large-scale cassava producers.