Oral and fecal polio vaccine excretion following bOPV vaccination among Israeli infants.

Introduction: Inactivated polio virus (IPV) vaccinations are a mainstay of immunization schedules in developed countries, while oral polio vaccine (OPV) is administered in developing countries and is the main vaccine in outbreaks. Due to circulating wild poliovirus (WPV1) detection in Israel (2013), oral bivalent polio vaccination (bOPV) was administered to IPV primed children and incorporated into the vaccination regimen.

Objectives: We aimed to determine the extent and timeframe of fecal and salivary polio vaccine virus (Sabin strains) shedding following bOPV vaccination among IPV primed children.

Two Decades of Coastal Dolphin Population Surveys in Israel, Eastern Mediterranean.

Along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, two near-shore dolphin species are prevalent; (least concern, IUCN) and (endangered, IUCN). Ship-board surveys and sporadic sightings over the last two decades have shown that the two differ in distribution- is found along the entire coast and only in the south. The environmental and anthropological factors affecting these species' spatial distribution and determining their habitat preferences in this area are largely unknown.

High infection rates of Toxoplasma gondii in cattle, sheep and pigs from Israel.

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite belonging to the phylum Apicomplexa, which causes the zoonotic disease toxoplasmosis. T. gondii infects almost all warm blood animals.

Inferring Numbers of Wild Poliovirus Excretors Using Quantitative Environmental Surveillance.

Response to and monitoring of viral outbreaks can be efficiently focused when rapid, quantitative, kinetic information provides the location and the number of infected individuals. Environmental surveillance traditionally provides information on location of populations with contagious, infected individuals since infectious poliovirus is excreted whether infections are asymptomatic or symptomatic. Here, we describe development of rapid (1 week turnaround time, TAT), quantitative RT-PCR of poliovirus RNA extracted directly from concentrated environmental surveillance samples to infer the number of infected individuals excreting poliovirus.