Leptospirosis Risk Assessment in Rodent Populations and Environmental Reservoirs in Humanitarian Aid Settings in Thailand.

Leptospirosis, a global zoonotic disease caused by spp., presents high morbidity and mortality risks, especially in tropical regions like Thailand. Military personnel deployed in endemic areas, such as during the Cobra Gold Joint exercise, face heightened exposure.

A casework study: The effect of the porcine digestive process on animal carcasses and human teeth.

What happens if a human body is fed to pigs? Although a popular notion in the entertainment industry, no scientific published literature exists that documents this porcine feeding behaviour, nor, more importantly, what elements of the cadaver may survive such a process. A study conducted in 2020, born out of a casework enquiry, aimed to investigate the following two questions; Would pigs feed on a human body? And, if so, what could be recovered post feeding event? Kangaroo carcasses, porcine carcasses (as human analogues) and 90 human teeth were prepared, and fed, to two domestic pigs, in a variety of feed scenarios. Biological traces including bones, bone fragments, teeth and tooth fragments were recovered both post-digestion from the faeces of the pigs, as well as uneaten from the porcine enclosure.

Borrelia miyamotoi a neglected tick-borne relapsing fever spirochete in Thailand.

Borrelia miyamotoi is a relapsing fever spirochete that shares the same vector as Lyme disease causing Borrelia. This epidemiological study of B. miyamotoi was conducted in rodent reservoirs, tick vectors and human populations simultaneously.

The Bacterial Community in Questing Ticks From Khao Yai National Park in Thailand.

Ticks are known vectors for a variety of pathogens including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. In this study, bacterial communities were investigated in active life stages of three tick genera (, and ) collected from Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. Four hundred and thirty-three questing ticks were selected for pathogen detection individually using real-time PCR assays, and 58 of these were subjected to further metagenomics analysis.