Standardization or tailorization of veterinary vaccines: a conscious endeavour against infectious disease of animals.

Protecting animals from infection is a major obligation of every veterinarian's work in order to preserve animal welfare while assuring human health. Highly infectious animal diseases can reduce the performances of food producing animals and may have a great economical impact on many industries. Some animal diseases can be transmitted to humans, and control of these types of diseases, is beneficial to public health.

Availability of veterinary medicinal products for food producing minor animal species in the Mediterranean area.

In its historic role, the Mediterranean used to be the unifying element of heterogenic cultures, economies and societies surrounding its three continents' borders. For the benefit of the leading idea laying behind the present paper and in order to reinforce its original role, the whole Mediterranean area has been deliberately considered as a geographic and legislative unicum relating to MUMS. Such an acronym, well established either in EU countries and internationally, stands for Minor Use/Minor Species and is generally accepted in scientific and regulatory debates to incorporate any reference to a non-core market of a veterinary medicinal product or to an animal species that, conventionally, has not been considered as a major one.

Characterization of H5N2 influenza viruses from Italian poultry.

From October 1997 to January 1998, highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza viruses caused eight outbreaks of avian influenza in northern Italy. A nonpathogenic H5N9 influenza virus was also isolated during the outbreaks as a result of virological and epidemiological surveillance to control the spread of avian influenza to neighbouring regions. Antigenic analysis showed that the Italian H5N2 isolates were antigenically similar to, although distinguishable from, A/HK/156/97, a human influenza H5N1 virus isolated in Hong Kong in 1997.