Monitoring mortality is an essential strategy for fish health management. Commercial marine finfish sites in British Columbia, Canada, are required to report mortality events (MEs) to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), which makes these data publicly available. This study aimed to analyze the spatial and temporal patterns of ME composition and total MEs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Understanding antimicrobial prescribing (AMP) practices and their prudent use in livestock can support the implementation of stewardship programs in veterinary medicine. Empiric therapy using antimicrobials is widely practiced in resource-poor settings, including Ethiopia. This could significantly contribute to the global burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the potential accumulation of residues in food.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHost-microbe dynamics are of increasing interest in marine research due to their role in host health and productivity. Changes in the shell microbiome of American lobsters have been associated with epizootic shell disease, a syndrome that is spreading northwards across the eastern U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSize distribution and size frequency information of American lobsters (Homarus americanus) are often used to help estimate the age distributions, and reproductive output for the species and to guide the determination of appropriate minimum legal sizes for the fishery. This study used truncated linear regression models to estimate the effects of sampling year, sampling month, lobster sex and water depth on the lobster size. A dataset of almost 130,000 trap-caught lobsters from the two most important lobster fishing areas of Atlantic Canada collected over a 12-year period (2004-2015) was analyzed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe shell microbial community of lobsters-a key factor in the development of epizootic shell disease (ESD)-is still insufficiently researched in Atlantic Canada and many knowledge gaps remain. This study aimed to establish a baseline description and analysis of the shell microbiome of apparently healthy lobsters from four locations in the region. More than 180 lobster shell swab samples were collected from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island (PEI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSyndromic surveillance has been an important driver for the incorporation of "big data analytics" into animal disease surveillance systems over the past decade. As the range of data sources to which automated data digitalization can be applied continues to grow, we discuss how to move beyond questions around the means to handle volume, variety and velocity, so as to ensure that the information generated is fit for disease surveillance purposes. We make the case that the value of data-driven surveillance depends on a "needs-driven" design approach to data digitalization and information delivery and highlight some of the current challenges and research frontiers in syndromic surveillance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMonitoring the moulting phenology of American lobsters (Homarus americanus) is important for maintaining sustainable lobster stocks. Changes in lobster landings can affect reproduction and disease susceptibility. Data on lobster moult indicators and on life-history traits (sex, size) were collated from a twelve-year monitoring program (2004-2015) in six lobster fishing areas in Atlantic Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe salmon louse Caligus rogercresseyi (Boxshall and Bravo 2000) is a common ectoparasite of farmed salmonids in Chile. Sea lice can negatively impact the growth of hosts, adversely affecting aquaculture productivity. Unlike Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Krøyer, 1838), whose life cycle parameters have been well studied due to its importance in the Northern Hemisphere, for C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe biggest change brought about by the "era of big data" to health in general, and epidemiology in particular, relates arguably not to the volume of data encountered, but to its variety. An increasing number of new data sources, including many not originally collected for health purposes, are now being used for epidemiological inference and contextualization. Combining evidence from multiple data sources presents significant challenges, but discussions around this subject often confuse issues of data access and privacy, with the actual technical challenges of data integration and interoperability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVariation in circulus spacing on the scales of wild Atlantic salmon is indicative of changes in body length growth rate. We analyzed scale circulus spacing during the post-smolt growth period for adult one sea-winter salmon (n = 1947) returning to Scotland over the period 1993-2011. The growth pattern of the scales was subjectively and visually categorized according to the occurrence and zonal sequence of three intercirculus spacing criteria ("Slow", "Fast" and "Check" zones).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn marine ecosystems, oceanographic processes often govern host contacts with infectious agents. Consequently, many approaches developed to quantify pathogen dispersal in terrestrial ecosystems have limited use in the marine context. Recent applications in marine disease modeling demonstrate that physical oceanographic models coupled with biological models of infectious agents can characterize dispersal networks of pathogens in marine ecosystems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A small proportion of the population consumes the majority of health care resources. High-cost health care users are a heterogeneous group. We aim to segment a provincial population into relevant homogenous sub-groups to provide actionable information on risk factors associated with high-cost health care use within sub-populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOur study aimed to evaluate farmers' compliance in implementing recommendations of farm-specific cow comfort changes, and the effects of these changes on lying time, stall cleanliness and cow cleanliness using a randomized controlled trial carried out on 100 smallholder dairy farms in Kenya, with 62 and 11 farms remaining in the intervention and control groups, respectively. On the first farm visit, data loggers were attached on lactating cows to determine lying time and questionnaires utilized to collect baseline data. Three days later, stall design and management recommendations were given to the intervention group of farmers orally and in written form.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCulicoides imicola is a midge species serving as vector for a number of viral diseases of livestock, including Bluetongue, and African Horse Sickness. C. imicola is also known to transmit Schmallenberg virus experimentally.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCulicoides imicola is the main vector transmitting viruses causing animal diseases such as Bluetongue, African Horse Sickness, and Schmallenberg. It has become widely distributed, with reports from South Africa to southern Europe, and from western Africa to southern China. This study presents a global compendium of Culicoides imicola occurrence between 1943 and 2018, reflecting the most recently compiled and harmonized global dataset derived from peer-reviewed literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLivestock losses due to rabies and health and the corresponding benefits of controlling the disease are not often considered when the cost-effectiveness of rabies control is evaluated. In this research, assessed the benefits of applying a One Health perspective that includes these losses to the case of canine rabies vaccination in Ethiopia. We constructed a dynamic epidemiological model of rabies transmission.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Prince Edward Island (PEI) mussel industry has faced challenges associated with invasive tunicate species over the past two decades. Field experiments to find suitable mitigation strategies require considerable time and are resource intensive. This study demonstrates the application of a mathematical model to assess several control strategies against populations under different temperature conditions in a mussel production area in PEI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtlantic salmon farming is one of the largest aquaculture sectors in the world. A major impact on farm economics, fish welfare and, potentially, nearby wild salmonid populations, is the sea louse ectoparasite Lepeophtheirus salmonis. Sea louse infestations are most often controlled through application of chemicals, but in most farming regions, sea lice have evolved resistance to the small set of available chemicals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComprehensive reviews of syndromic surveillance in animal health have highlighted the hindrances to integration and interoperability among systems when data emerge from different sources. Discussions with syndromic surveillance experts in the fields of animal and public health, as well as computer scientists from the field of information management, have led to the conclusion that a major component of any solution will involve the adoption of ontologies. Here we describe the advantages of such an approach, and the steps taken to set up the Animal Health Surveillance Ontological (AHSO) framework.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConnectivity in an aquatic setting is determined by a combination of hydrodynamic circulation and the biology of the organisms driving linkages. These complex processes can be simulated in coupled biological-physical models. The physical model refers to an underlying circulation model defined by spatially-explicit nodes, often incorporating a particle-tracking model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSea lice Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Krøyer) are a major ectoparasite affecting farmed Atlantic salmon in most major salmon producing regions. Substantial resources are applied to sea lice control and the development of new technologies towards this end. Identifying and understanding how sea lice population patterns vary among cages on a salmon farm can be an important step in the design and analysis of any sea lice control strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEthiopia has one of the highest incidence levels of human rabies in Africa, with 3-7 deaths per 100,000 people annually. The country has no official rabies control programme, despite the availability of an effective canine vaccine to control rabies. To support effective rabies control, an understanding of the factors affecting dog owners' voluntary intentions to vaccinate their dogs is important.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: A small proportion of the population accounts for the majority of healthcare costs. Mental health and addiction (MHA) patients are consistently high-cost. We aimed to delineate factors amenable to public health action that may reduce high-cost use among a cohort of MHA clients in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
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