Contrasting Treatment- and Farm-Level Metrics of Antimicrobial Use Based on Used Daily Dose vs. Defined Daily Dose for the German Antibiotics Minimization Concept.

The German Antibiotics Minimization Concept defines a farm-level benchmarking process based on half-yearly treatment frequencies that applies to six animal populations for fattening: calves (≤ 8 months), cattle (> 8 months), piglets (≤ 30 kg), pigs (> 30 kg), broiler chickens, and turkeys. The treatment frequency defined in the Minimization Concept takes into account the number of animals treated, the treatment duration, and the number of active antimicrobial ingredients, for each individual treatment, and is equivalent to a treatment frequency based on the used daily dose (UDD) and the actual weight of the animals at the time of treatment. With data from the German benchmarking system for the seven half-year periods from the second semester 2014 to the end of 2017, we compared UDD-based metrics of antimicrobial use (AMU) at the treatment and the farm level with metrics based on defined daily doses for animals (DDDvet) and standardized animal weights assumed at the time most likely for treatment.

Comparison of Consumption Data and Phenotypical Antimicrobial Resistance in Isolates of Human Urinary Samples and of Weaning and Fattening Pigs from Surveillance and Monitoring Systems in Germany.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) data from humans are mostly collected from clinical isolates, whereas from livestock data also exist from colonizing pathogens. In Germany, livestock data are collected from clinical and nonclinical isolates. We compared resistance levels of clinical and nonclinical isolates of from weaning and fattening pigs with clinical outpatient isolates of humans from urban and rural areas.

Association of Antimicrobial Resistance in spp. in Broilers and Turkeys with Antimicrobial Use.

We investigated trends in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in   and   in poultry between 2010 and 2016 in Germany and their association with antimicrobial use. had been isolated from the caeca of broilers and turkeys at slaughter by regional laboratories according to current ISO methods in the framework of a national monitoring program. Isolates were submitted to the National Reference Laboratory for and tested for AMR using broth microdilution methods.

Comparison of Bayesian and frequentist methods for prevalence estimation under misclassification.

Background: Various methods exist for statistical inference about a prevalence that consider misclassifications due to an imperfect diagnostic test. However, traditional methods are known to suffer from truncation of the prevalence estimate and the confidence intervals constructed around the point estimate, as well as from under-performance of the confidence intervals' coverage.

Methods: In this study, we used simulated data sets to validate a Bayesian prevalence estimation method and compare its performance to frequentist methods, i.

The Quantity and Quality of Illegally Imported Products of Animal Origin in Personal Consignments into the European Union Seized at Two German Airports between 2010 And 2014.

The import of products of animal origin (POAO) in travellers' personal consignments presents a considerable risk of introducing animal diseases and emerging zoonoses into the European Union. The current regulation (EU) 206/2009 implements strict measures for illegally imported POAO, whereupon non-complying products have to be seized and destroyed regardless. Especially airports serve as global bottlenecks for illegally imported POAO where passenger controls of non-European flights are performed by customs and veterinary services in collaboration.

The effect of sibmating on the infection dynamics of male-killing bacteria.

Male-killing (MK) bacteria are vertically transmitted endosymbionts that selectively kill the male offspring of their hosts. Simple mathematical models describe the infection dynamics using two parameters, the bacterial transmission rate and a fitness compensation for siblings of killed males. These models cannot explain two phenomena that have been observed in nature: the persistence of extreme MK causing all-female broods, and the coexistence of two different strains of MK bacteria in the same host population.

Wolbachia-induced unidirectional cytoplasmic incompatibility and speciation: mainland-island model.

Bacteria of the genus Wolbachia are among the most common endosymbionts in the world. In many insect species these bacteria induce a sperm-egg incompatibility between the gametes of infected males and uninfected females, commonly called unidirectional cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). It is generally believed that unidirectional CI cannot promote speciation in hosts because infection differences between populations will be unstable and subsequent gene flow will eliminate genetic differences between diverging populations.