Wild boar visits to commercial pig farms in southwest England: implications for disease transmission.

Contact between wild animals and farmed livestock may result in disease transmission with huge financial, welfare and ethical consequences. Conflicts between people and wildlife can also arise when species such as wild boar (Sus scrofa) consume crops or dig up pasture. This is a relatively recent problem in England where wild boar populations have become re-established in the last 20 years following a 500-year absence.

Mild-moderate equine asthma: A scoping review of evidence supporting the consensus definition.

Current consensus defines mild-moderate equine asthma (mEA; previously inflammatory airway disease) by a hierarchy of indicators of lung pathology: cough, poor performance, increased tracheobronchial mucus, inflammatory bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cytology and pulmonary dysfunction. Exclusion criteria include fever, systemic disease, or increased resting respiratory effort. The aim of this review was to inform future research by identifying gaps, strengths and weaknesses in the current body of evidence supporting this consensus-proposed definition.

The importance of fine-scale predictors of wild boar habitat use in an isolated population.

Predicting the likelihood of wildlife presence at potential wildlife-livestock interfaces is challenging. These interfaces are usually relatively small geographical areas where landscapes show large variation over small distances. Models of wildlife distribution based on coarse data over wide geographical ranges may not be representative of these interfaces.

Towards a unified generic framework to define and observe contacts between livestock and wildlife: a systematic review.

Wild animals are the source of many pathogens of livestock and humans. Concerns about the potential transmission of economically important and zoonotic diseases from wildlife have led to increased surveillance at the livestock-wildlife interface. Knowledge of the types, frequency and duration of contacts between livestock and wildlife is necessary to identify risk factors for disease transmission and to design possible mitigation strategies.

Data for decision making: strategic information tools for hospital management during a pandemic.

Objectives: During the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, Argentina's Hospital Nacional Profesor Alejandro Posadas, a referral center in the capital province of Buenos Aires, treated a large urban patient population. Beginning in April, after severe influenza had been reported in North America but before any suspected cases of H1N1 had been reported in Argentina, the authors formed a pandemic planning committee to direct our hospital's response. An important strategy of the management team was to create a single daily monitoring tool that could integrate multiple information sources.