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One Health faces enormous pressure and challenges as it attempts to mitigate dynamic, surprising and complex global events that threaten the health and sustainability of human and animal populations and the biosphere. One Health practitioners and researchers need every advantage to developing working solutions to the world's imminent complex issues. Heath promotion and harm reduction, interrelated approaches that have seen much success over decades of use in global public health, may be important models to consider. Both use an upstream socioecological determinant of health approach to reach beyond the health sector in all health efforts, and encourage active community participation and empowerment to attain and sustain human and ecological health. This scoping review of 411 documents, believed to be the first to relate health promotion and harm reduction to One Health, searched self-declared One Health research literature for evidence of health promotion and harm reduction policies, principles and methodologies. It sought to answer the questions: “What is the scope of practice of One Health in self-declared One Health publications?” and “Are attributes of health promotion and harm reduction found in self-declared One Health-reviewed research literature?” Over half of the papers revealed no health promotion or harm reduction attributes while 7% were well-endowed with these attributes. These 7% of papers focused on deep-seated, complex health issues with systemic knowledge gaps and decision-making issues revolving around specific population vulnerabilities, social inequities and competing stakeholders. Implementing ‘on the ground change’ was a common theme in the strongest health promotion/harm reduction papers we identified. Alternatively, papers lacking health promotion or harm reduction attributes focused on managing proximate risks, primarily for infectious diseases. The addition of health promotion and harm reduction to One Health practices may help the field rise to the growing expectations for its involvement in complex global issues like pandemics and climate change., Highlights • One Health is being increasingly called on to contribute to grand challenges of global health security. • Health promotion and harm reduction have been successful over decades to advance interventions in public health. • Health promotion and harm reduction approaches have proved valuable when used in contemporary One Health. • Health promotion and harm reduction may be transferable models for One Health to work on complex health issues.

Early warning systems for climate change adaptation, preparedness and response will need to take into consideration the range of factors that can drive risk and vulnerability. There are no data from which to nominate the most effective, efficient and reliable wildlife health signals for public health planning, but there is growing opinion that wildlife health could signal public health vulnerability related to climate change. The objective of this commentary is to explore the potential for wildlife to contribute to climate change early warning for public health protection in Canada. Wildlife impact many determinants of human health through both direct and indirect mechanisms; several of which are strongly interconnected. There is a long history of wildlife serving as bio-sentinels for environmental pollutants and pathogens. Wildlife health could support public health threat detection, risk assessment and risk communication by detecting and tracking infectious and non-infectious hazards, being bio-sentinels of effects of new or changed hazards, providing biologically understandable information to motivate changes in personal risk behaviours and providing insights into new and unanticipated threats. Public health risk communication and strategic planning priorities for climate change could benefit from a wildlife health intelligence system that collects data on incidents of disease and hazard discovery as well as information on social and environmental conditions that affect risk perception and likelihoods of human exposure or harms.

The unprecedented threats to the health and sustainability of wildlife populations are inspiring conversations on the need to change the way knowledge is generated, valued, and used to promote action to protect wildlife health. Wildlife Health 2.0 symbolizes the need to investigate how to improve connections between research expertise and policy or practices to protect wildlife health. Two imperatives drive this evolution: 1) growing frustrations that research is inadequately being used to inform management decisions and 2) the realization that scientific certainty is context specific for complex socioecologic issues, such as wildlife health. Failure to appreciate the unpredictability of complex systems or to incorporate ethical and cultural dimensions of decisions has limited the contribution of research to decision making. Wildlife health can draw from scholarship in other fields, such as public health and conservation, to bridge the knowledge-to-action gap. Efforts to integrate science into decisions are more likely to be effective when they enhance relevance, credibility, and legitimacy of information for people who will make or be affected by management decisions. A Wildlife Health 2.0 agenda is not a rejection of the current research paradigm but rather a call to expand our areas of inquiry to ensure that the additional contextual understanding is generated to help decision makers make good choices.

Background Toxoplasma gondii, a zoonotic protozoan parasite, infects mammals and birds worldwide. Infection in humans is often asymptomatic, though illnesses can occur in immunocompromised hosts and the fetuses of susceptible women infected during pregnancy. In Nunavik, Canada, 60% of the Inuit population has measurable antibodies against T. gondii. Handling and consumption of wildlife have been identified as risk factors for exposure. Serological evidence of exposure has been reported for wildlife in Nunavik; however, T. gondii has not been detected in wildlife tissues commonly consumed by Inuit. Methods We used a magnetic capture DNA extraction and real-time PCR protocol to extract and amplify T. gondii DNA from large quantities of tissues (up to 100 g) of 441 individual animals in Nunavik: 166 ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), 156 geese (Branta canadensis and Chen caerulescens), 61 ringed seals (Pusa hispida), 31 caribou (Rangifer tarandus) and 27 walruses (Odobenus rosmarus). Results DNA from T. gondii was detected in 9% (95% CI: 3–15%) of geese from four communities in western and southern Nunavik, but DNA was not detected in other wildlife species including 20% (95% CI: 12–31%) of ringed seals and 26% (95% CI: 14–43%) of caribou positive on a commercial modified agglutination test (MAT) using thawed heart muscle juice. In geese, tissue parasite burden was highest in heart, followed by brain, breast muscle, liver and gizzard. Serological results did not correlate well with tissue infection status for any wildlife species. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first report on the detection, quantification, and characterization of DNA of T. gondii (clonal lineage II in one goose) from wildlife harvested for food in Nunavik, which supports the hypothesis that migratory geese can carry T. gondii into Nunavik where feline definitive hosts are rare. This study suggests that direct detection methods may be useful for detection of T. gondii in wildlife harvested for human consumption and provides data needed for a quantitative exposure assessment that will determine the risk of T. gondii exposure for Inuit who harvest and consume geese in Nunavik.

Work that addresses the cumulative impacts of resource extraction on environment, community, and health is necessarily large in scope. This paper presents experiences from initiating research at this intersection and explores implications for the ambitious, integrative agenda of planetary health. The purpose is to outline origins, design features, and preliminary insights from our intersectoral and international project, based in Canada and titled the &ldquo, Environment, Community, Health Observatory&rdquo, (ECHO) Network. With a clear emphasis on rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, environments, and health, the ECHO Network is designed to answer the question: How can an Environment, Community, Health Observatory Network support the integrative tools and processes required to improve understanding and response to the cumulative health impacts of resource development? The Network is informed by four regional cases across Canada where we employ a framework and an approach grounded in observation, &ldquo, taking notice for action&rdquo, and collective learning. Sharing insights from the foundational phase of this five-year project, we reflect on the hidden and obvious challenges of working across scales, sectors, and sites, and the overlap of generative and uncomfortable entanglements associated with health and resource development. Yet, although intersectoral work addressing the cumulative impacts of resource extraction presents uncertainty and unresolved tensions, ultimately we argue that it is worth staying with the trouble.

Sri Lanka is progressing towards its goal of eliminating human rabies. This goal rests on programs designed to limit canine rabies, which in turn requires a combination of targeted dog rabies control and a better understanding of the movement of the virus between domestic animals, people, and wildlife. Coordinated and integrated surveillance of the disease between human and animal health sectors underpins successful rabies elimination. Our objective was to review surveillance data from 2005 to 2014 to assemble the first multispecies synthesis of rabies information in Sri Lanka and, in doing so, assess needs and opportunities for a One Health approach to rabies surveillance in the country. Our descriptive epidemiological findings were consistent with other studies showing a decline in human cases, endemic and unchanging numbers of dog cases, a relationship between human density and the occurrence of human and animal cases, and significant gaps in understanding trends in rabies incidences in livestock and wildlife. Assessing the trends in the data from the three government organizations responsible for rabies surveillance was difficult due to lack of information on animal population sizes, unquantified sampling biases due to inequities in access to diagnostic capacities, regulatory and administrative barriers, and a continued reliance on clinical means to establish a diagnosis. The information required for a comprehensive rabies control programme was not standardized or consistent, was not in one place, showed significant gaps in completeness, and was not amenable to routine and rapid analysis. Achieving rabies elimination in Sri Lanka would benefit from harmonization of diagnostic and information management standards across animal and human health sectors as well as equitable access to diagnostic capacity for all regions and species.

Linkages between human, environmental, and animal health have been an increasingly important topic of geographical research in recent years. As more data become available for explicitly representing the geographies of these systems, and how they interact, geographers are playing an important role in shaping this research area. Whereas previously these linkages have been known, but rarely quantified, geographical data are now enabling surveillance of environmental changes, animal populations, and human populations in order to realize fine-grained estimates of disease risk. In this paper, we consider the role of spatial data in this new research area, and characterize challenges of integrating and analyzing data across these domains. We explore these issues through three case studies into emerging zoonoses; avian influenza, Japanese encephalitis, and syndromic animal health surveillance. Issues of scale, availability and access, and linkage uncertainties are found to be key data issues. We anticipate these issues will be important research challenges for geographers working on zoonoses, and as part of multidisciplinary research teams. Finally, we suggest that geographers working in this area adopt the concept of vulnerability surveillance to address these issues and refocus research on vulnerable populations, interfaces, and areas.

The need to adequately predict, prevent and respond to infectious diseases emerging unexpectedly from human-animal-environmental systems has driven interest in multisectoral, socio-economic, systems-based, collaborative (MSC) research approaches such as EcoHealth and One Health. Our goals were to document how MSC research has been used to address EIDs in Asia, and to explore how MSC approaches align with current priorities for EID research in Asia. We gathered priorities for EID research from the peer-reviewed and grey literature, documented organizational descriptions of MCS research approaches, and analysed a series of EID MSC projects. We found that priority areas for EID research in Asia included (1) understanding host-pathogen-environment interactions; (2) improving tools and technologies; (3) changing people's behaviour; and (4) evaluating the effectiveness of interventions. We found that the unifying characteristics of MSC research were that it was action-oriented and sought to inspire change under real-world conditions at the complex interface of human and natural systems. We suggest that MSC research can be considered a type of 'pragmatic research' and might be most useful in describing change in complex human-animal-environmental systems, accelerating research-to-action, and evaluating effectiveness of interventions in 'real world' settings.

Limited surveillance programs and lack of diagnostic laboratory testing capacity in many low and middle income Asian countries have made it difficult to validate epidemiological patterns and anticipate future changes in disease risk. In this study, we consider the case of Japanese Encephalitis in Asia and examine how populations of human hosts and animal reservoirs are expected to change over the next three decades. Growth was modelled at the sub-national level for rural and urban areas to estimate where high-density, susceptible populations will potentially overlap with populations of the virus' amplifying host. High-risk areas based on these projections were compared to the current distribution of Japanese Encephalitis, and known immunization activities in order to identify areas of highest priority for concern. Results indicated that mapping JE risk factors at the sub-national level is an effective way to contextualize and supplement JE surveillance data. New patterns of risk factor change occurring in Southeast Asia were identified, including around major urban areas experiencing both urbanization and growth in pig populations. A hotspot analysis of pig-to-population ratio found a significant spatial cluster extending northward through Southeast Asia and interior China. Mapping forecasted changes in risk factors for JE highlights regions vulnerable to emerging zoonoses and may be an important tool for developing effecting transnational health policies.

Investment in wild animal health has not kept pace with investment in health programs for agriculture or people. Previous arguments of the inherent value of wildlife or the possible public health or economic consequences of fish or terrestrial wildlife diseases have failed to motivate sufficient, sustained funding. Wildlife health programs are often funded on an issue-by-issue basis, most often in response to diseases that have already emerged, rather than being funded to protect and promote the health of wild animals on an ongoing basis. We propose that one explanation for this situation is the lack of business cases that explains the value of wild animal health programs to funders. This paper proposes a set of building blocks that inform the creation of wildlife health business cases. The building blocks are a series of questions derived from a literature review, the experience of directors of two large national wildlife health programs and lessons learned in developing a draft business case for one of those programs. The six building blocks are: (1) Know what you are trying to achieve; (2) Describe your capabilities; (3) Identify factors critical to your success; (4) Describe the value you can bring to supporters; (5) Identify who needs your services and why; and (6) Share the plan.

Highlights • One Health emphasizes the interdependence of human, animal, and environmental health. • Wildlife parasites are ubiquitous; how do we decide which are One Health issues? • We propose questions to help to prioritize wildlife parasites in a One Health context. • We suggest principles for taking action on wildlife parasites with One Health significance., One Health has gained a remarkable profile in the animal and public health communities, in part owing to the pressing issues of emerging infectious diseases of wildlife origin. Wildlife parasitology can offer insights into One Health, and likewise One Health can provide justification to study and act on wildlife parasites. But how do we decide which wildlife parasites are One Health issues? We explore toxoplasmosis in wildlife in the Canadian Arctic as an example of a parasite that poses a risk to human health, and that also has potential to adversely affect wildlife populations of conservation concern and importance for food security and cultural well-being. This One Health framework can help communities, researchers, and policymakers prioritize issues for action in a resource-limited world.

Urban Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) populations can carry the bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). There are numerous knowledge gaps in the epidemiology of MRSA in these populations that limit understanding of its ecology in urban environments. For example, fecal shedding of MRSA, which may increase environmental contamination, has been reported in other species; however, it is unknown whether Norway rats carry the bacteria rectally. Furthermore, while intermittent MRSA shedding has been shown in other species and may dictate when the risk of transmission is highest, duration of carriage has not been examined for Norway rats. Previous work has shown that lethal animal-control methods may increase the level of pathogens within reservoir populations, possibly by disrupting ecological patterns. However, the impact of rodent-control on potentially environmentally acquired pathogens like MRSA has not been tested. Using capture-mark-recapture methods in an inner-city neighborhood in Vancouver, Canada, we show that rats intermittently carry MRSA both in the rectum and oropharynx. By assessing the prevalence of MRSA before and after enacting a pest-control intervention, we report that kill-trapping had no impact on the prevalence of carriage of this environmentally-acquired agent.

SUMMARYThere is interest in the potential of companion animal surveillance to provide data to improve pet health and to provide early warning of environmental hazards to people. We implemented a companion animal surveillance system in Calgary, Alberta and the surrounding communities. Informatics technologies automatically extracted electronic medical records from participating veterinary practices and identified cases of enteric syndrome in the warehoused records. The data were analysed using time-series analyses and a retrospective space–time permutation scan statistic. We identified a seasonal pattern of reports of occurrences of enteric syndromes in companion animals and four statistically significant clusters of enteric syndrome cases. The cases within each cluster were examined and information about the animals involved (species, age, sex), their vaccination history, possible exposure or risk behaviour history, information about disease severity, and the aetiological diagnosis was collected. We then assessed whether the cases within the cluster were unusual and if they represented an animal or public health threat. There was often insufficient information recorded in the medical record to characterize the clusters by aetiology or exposures. Space–time analysis of companion animal enteric syndrome cases found evidence of clustering. Collection of more epidemiologically relevant data would enhance the utility of practice-based companion animal surveillance.

We inventoried and assessed historical anthrax outbreak data from 1962-2008 in wild wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) in Wood Buffalo National Park and the Slave River Lowlands (SRL), Northwest Territories, Canada. We compared these results with a 2010 outbreak in the SRL. Anthrax outbreaks have occurred in 12 of the years between 1962 and 2008 in wild wood bison with 1,515 anthrax deaths detected. The average number of carcasses found each outbreak year was 126 (range 1-363), though local averages varied. The numbers of animals found dead per outbreak declined over the past four decades. Outbreaks varied in duration from 16-44 days (average length 25.5 days). The length of an outbreak was not a determinant of the number of dead bison found, but outbreaks starting in July had more deaths than those staring in June. Males were more likely to be detected in an outbreak, outbreaks were likely not random events, and there was no relationship between outbreak size or length and location. Future surveillance activities may benefit from targeting bulls and planning surveillance activities for more than 3 wk after outbreak detection. Coordinating data collecting and recording efforts between jurisdictions may overcome historical challenges in inconsistent record keeping.

Companion animals closely share their domestic environment with people and have the potential to, act as sources of zoonotic diseases. They also have the potential to be sentinels of infectious and noninfectious, diseases. With the exception of rabies, there has been minimal ongoing surveillance of, companion animals in Canada. We developed customized data extraction software, the University of, Calgary Data Extraction Program (UCDEP), to automatically extract and warehouse the electronic, medical records (EMR) from participating private veterinary practices to make them available for, disease surveillance and knowledge creation for evidence-based practice. It was not possible to build, generic data extraction software; the UCDEP required customization to meet the specific software, capabilities of the veterinary practices. The UCDEP, tailored to the participating veterinary practices', management software, was capable of extracting data from the EMR with greater than 99%, completeness and accuracy. The experiences of the people developing and using the UCDEP and the, quality of the extracted data were evaluated. The electronic medical record data stored in the data, warehouse may be a valuable resource for surveillance and evidence-based medical research.

Our objectives were to establish if the determinant of health model used in the fields of human population and public health could be adapted to wildlife health; if it was applicable to more than one species; and if it reflected how fish and wildlife managers conceptualized health in practice. A conceptual model was developed using a scoping review on fish and wildlife health and resilience coupled with a participatory process with experts on barren ground caribou ( Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus) and sockeye salmon ( Oncorhynchus nerka) health. Both the literature and experts supported the concept of wildlife health as a cumulative effect involving multiple factors that extend beyond the disease and pathogen focus of many wildlife health studies and legislation. Six themes were associated with fish and wildlife health: 1) the biologic endowment of the individual and population; 2) the animal's social environment; 3) the quality and abundance of the animal's needs for daily living; 4) the abiotic environment in which the animal lives; 5) sources of direct mortality; and 6) changing human expectations. These themes were shared between salmon and caribou and conformed to expert perceptions of health. Determinants of health used in human public health are used for planning, development of policy, and guiding of research. The model we produced may also have use as a wildlife health planning tool to help managers identify health protection priorities and to promote actions across the determinants of health.

A severe outbreak of scuticociliatosis occurred in Australian pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis (Lesson, 1872), kept at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada). Clinical signs included anorexia, lethargy, irregular respiration, and death. Cytology and histopathology revealed a high number of histophagous ciliated protozoa within the tissues. The parasite, identified as Philasterides dicentrarchi, was observed in several internal organs that appeared edematous and hemorrhagic upon postmortem examination. Severe histopathologic lesions were reported in particular in the ovary, the kidney, and the intestine. This infection was successfully treated with metronidazole via bath therapy. No further evidence of this parasite was found in the treated fish.

This study examines backyard poultry flock owners perspectives about bird health and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in order to understand how they compare to previous reports of public responses to emerging infectious diseases and how they might influence compliance with government HPAI control activities. We conducted interviews with backyard flock owners in southwestern British Columbia, Canada because it has a high density of commercial and backyard poultry flocks and is the location of three recent HPAI outbreaks, including a large outbreak in 2004 in which 553 backyard flocks were culled. We used a qualitative open-ended interview method to build trust with interviewees and collect rich data, and latent content analysis to extract participants’ perspectives from the interview transcripts. The 18 backyard flock owners interviewed saw their poultry as very different from commercial poultry. They kept birds for emotional reasons, to provide food, and to preserve poultry genetic diversity. The...

The objective of this study was to estimate agreement between the caudal fold test (CFT) and different serological tests for the detection of Mycobacterium bovis infection in bison by using prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted kappa (PABAK). A total of 212 of wild wood bison from Wood Buffalo National Park were tested with the CFT as well as several serological tests: fluorescent polarization assay (FPA), multiantigen print immunoassay (MAPIA), rapid lateral-flow test (RT) and dual path platform test (DPP). For RT, 3 variations were conducted using 30μl of serum (RT 30), 20μl of serum (RT 20) and 20μl of serum considering only a strong reaction as positive (RT 20 ST). The McNemar's χ(2) test was conducted to assess whether the proportion of positive test results to 2 different tests differed. Two measures of agreement between pair of tests were estimated: the Cohen's kappa statistic and PABAK. The apparent prevalence of tuberculosis in the sampled animals varied depending on the diagnostic test from 6.1% (FPA and DPP) to 47.2% (CFT). The prevalence estimated by CFT differed from the prevalence estimated by the other tests, whereas the prevalence estimated by FPA, MAPIA, RT 20 ST and DPP were not significantly different. The kappa and PABAK estimates calculated between CFT and the rest of the tests suggested poor to slight agreement between tests (k and PABAK0.25 in all cases). The PABAK estimates for the pairwise combinations among serological tests were numerically greater than the kappa estimates (and significantly greater when FPA was compared to the rest of serological tests), and suggested substantial to almost perfect agreement (PABAK0.75 in all cases). The disagreement between the skin and serological tests for the detection of M. bovis infection could be partly because the tests measure different immunological responses (cell-mediated vs. humoral) that are predominant at different stages of the infection, and partly due to inaccuracy of the tests. Further research is needed to evaluate the accuracy of diagnostic tests in order to establish a reliable case definition, combining different tests, to be used in the surveillance and control of tuberculosis in free-ranging bison populations.

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the single largest cause of viral encephalitis in the world and has been endemic in Nepal since the early 1980s. Since then, it has spread from its origins in lowland plains to the Kathmandu Valley as well as in hill and mountain districts. Pigs are amplifying hosts for the virus. The Nepal government has been encouraging the development of pig farming as a means of poverty alleviation. Whereas other countries have reduced JE through vaccination programmes and improvements in pig husbandry, these options are not economically possible in Nepal. The objective of this study was to examine the occupational risk of pig farmers in Nepal and to determine their level of knowledge and practice of JE prevention techniques. We surveyed 100 randomly selected pig farmers in the Kathmandu District and found that pig farmers were exposed to many JE risk factors including poverty and close proximity to pigs, rice paddy fields and water birds, which are the definitive hosts for the virus. Forty-two percent of the farmers had heard of JE, 20% associated it with mosquito bites and 7% named pigs as risk factors. Few protective measures were taken. None of the farmers were vaccinated against JE nor were any pigs, despite an ongoing human vaccination campaign. This farming community had little ownership of land and limited education. JE education programmes must consider gender differences in access to public health information as there were an equal number of male and female farmers. We provide findings that can inform future JE education programmes for this vulnerable population.

The integration of the veterinary, medical and environmental sciences necessary to predict, prevent or respond to emerging zoonotic diseases requires effective collaboration and exchange of knowledge across these disciplines. There has been no research into how to connect and integrate these professions in the pursuit of a common task. We conducted a literature search looking at the experiences and wisdom resulting from collaborations built in health partnerships, health research knowledge transfer and exchange, business knowledge management and systems design engineering to identify key attributes of successful interdisciplinary (ID) collaboration. This was followed by a workshop with 16 experts experienced in ID collaboration including physicians, veterinarians and biologists from private practice, academia and government agencies. The workshop participants shared their perspectives on the facilitators and barriers to ID collaboration. Our results found that the elements that can support or impede ID collaboration can be categorized as follows: the characteristics of the people, the degree to which the task is a shared goal, the policies, practices and resources of the workplace, how information technology is used and the evaluation of the results. Above all, personal relationships built on trust and respect are needed to best assemble the disciplinary strength of the professions. The challenge of meeting collaborators outside the boundaries of one's discipline or jurisdiction may be met by an independent third party, an ID knowledge broker. The broker would know where the knowledge could be found, would facilitate introductions and would help to build effective ID teams.

Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) is an emerging fungal pathogen that has caused recent die-offs of native salamanders in Europe and is known to be lethal to at least some North American species in laboratory trials [1]. Bsal appears to have originated in Asia, and may have been introduced by humans into wild populations in Europe through commercial trade of amphibians [1]. Since the first outbreaks of Bsal in the Netherlands, it has been the etiologic agent of mortality events in Belgium (wild) and Germany (captivity), and was recently found in imported salamanders in the United Kingdom [1–4]. Substantial concern has been raised about the associated risk of Bsal to native salamanders in North America [5]. Herein, we review what policy actions are occurring in North America and elsewhere, and call for creation of a North American Bsal Strategic Plan.

In the last decade Cryptococcus gattii has emerged as an important human and animal pathogen in southwestern British Columbia (BC), Canada. When the disease initially emerged it was identified in humans and multiple animal species on the east coast of Vancouver Island. From fall 2003 until summer 2004, active surveillance was initiated to look for horses exposed to or infected with the organism by performing nasal cultures and serum antigen testing in horses residing within 10 km of known areas of environmental reservoirs of the fungus. Surveillance efforts were facilitated by local equine practitioners who were also encouraged to report clinical cases. Nasal colonization was identified in four of the 260 horses tested but none had a serum cryptococcal antigen titer. All positive horses were from the same geographic area near Duncan, BC. During the study period, a single horse was diagnosed with systemic cryptococcosis and euthanized; clinical and post mortem information is described. As this organism continues to disseminate in the Pacific Northwest it is important for veterinarians to be familiar with the disease as early diagnosis may enable more effective treatment.

Understanding normal movement patterns and husbandry practices of poultry production systems is important for understanding the dynamics of disease spread, and for controlling outbreaks of highly infectious diseases, such as highly pathogenic avian influenza. To learn about these patterns in the noncommercial or "backyard" poultry-keeping sector, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to 18 backyard-flock owners in British Columbia, Canada, and responses were analyzed descriptively. Six participants reported that they visited premises that were part of the commercial poultry system in the last year; however, bird movements between commercial and noncommercial farms were always unidirectional, from commercial to backyard. Bird movements into and out of participants' flocks occurred multiple times per month (two flocks), three times per year (five flocks), once or twice a year (nine flocks) and every 3-5 yr (two flocks). Visitors had direct contact with three participants' flocks multiple times per week; for other flocks, visitors had direct contact three times or less per year. Fourteen participants rarely had direct contact with other backyard flocks, three had contact more than once per week, and one had contact every 3 mo. Participants stated that the health of their birds was excellent (7), very good (3), good (6), O.K. (1), and all right (1), and used a median of two biosecurity practices to maintain health in their flock. Our findings suggest that bird movements are not likely to transmit disease from backyard to commercial flocks; however, human movements between backyard and commercial premises could transmit diseases. Within the backyard-flock sector, the majority of small flocks appear to pose little risk of disease transmission because they are maintained in semi-isolation from other flocks; however, a minority of flocks has high contact levels with other flocks and could be important in disease spread.

SUMMARYLeptospirosis is one of the most widespread zoonoses in the world. A large outbreak of suspected human leptospirosis began in Sri Lanka during 2008. This study investigated spatial variables associated with suspected leptospirosis risk during endemic and outbreak periods. Data were obtained for monthly numbers of reported cases of suspected clinical leptospirosis for 2005–2009 for all of Sri Lanka. Space–time scan statistics were combined with regression modelling to test associations during endemic and outbreak periods. The cross-correlation function was used to test association between rainfall and leptospirosis at four locations. During the endemic period (2005–2007), leptospirosis risk was positively associated with shorter average distance to rivers and with higher percentage of agriculture made up of farms

Human movements associated with poultry farming create contact networks that might facilitate transmission of avian influenza (AI) between farms during outbreaks. In Canada, no information is available about how these networks connect poultry farms. The purpose of this study was to document human contacts between commercial poultry farms in Ontario, Canada, to learn how AI might be transmitted during outbreaks. We used face-to-face interviews with people entering the farm biosecurity perimeter on four layer, one turkey and three broiler breeder poultry farms in Ontario to collect information on between-farm contacts and biosecurity practices. Over a four-day study period on each farm, a median of 10.5 people entered the farm biosecurity perimeter (range 2-31). Ninety-six per cent (111/118) of people consented to be interviewed. Of these, fifty-three per cent (59/111) had contact with one or more (median 2, degree range 1-14) other poultry farms within 72 h. A median of 25 (range 7-65) human contacts linked study farms to other poultry farms. The mean distance of between-farm contacts was 53 km. Eighty-six per cent of people who answered the biosecurity questions (94/109) reported using one or more biosecurity practices. However, on 7/8 farms, at least one person reported that they did not use any biosecurity practices. Fifty per cent of social visitors used biosecurity, whereas 96% of all other people used biosecurity. Ninety-two per cent of people that entered the poultry barns (46/50) used one or more biosecurity practices, whereas 81% of people (48/59) that did not enter the poultry barns used one or more biosecurity practices. Because our study documented farm visitors who did not use any biosecurity practices and moved between commercial poultry farms, we suggest that rapid trace-out of human movements is as important as containment zoning to limiting disease spread during an outbreak of highly pathogenic AI in Ontario.

Because many infectious diseases are emerging in animals in low-income and middle-income countries, surveillance of animal health in these areas may be needed for forecasting disease risks to humans. We present an overview of a mobile phone–based frontline surveillance system developed and implemented in Sri Lanka. Field veterinarians reported animal health information by using mobile phones. Submissions increased steadily over 9 months, with ≈4,000 interactions between fi eld veterinarians and reports on the animal population received by the system. Development of human resources and increased communication between local stakeholders (groups and persons whose actions are affected by emerging infectious diseases and animal health) were instrumental for successful implementation. The primary lesson learned was that mobile phone–based surveillance of animal populations is acceptable and feasible in lower-resource settings. However, any system implementation plan must consider the time needed to garner support for novel surveillance methods among users and stakeholders.

Animal health policy for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) must, for the time being, be based on expert opinion and shared international experience. We used the intellectual capital and knowledge of experienced Chinese and Canadian practitioners and policy makers to inform policy options for China and find shared policy elements applicable to both countries. No peer-reviewed comprehensive evaluations or systematic regulatory impact assessments of animal health policies were found. Sixteen guiding policy principles emerged from our thematic analysis of Chinese and Canadian policies. We provide a list of shared policy goals, targets and elements for HPAI preparedness, response and recovery. Policy elements clustered in a manner consistent with core public health competencies. Complex situations like HPAI require complex and adaptive policies, yet policies that cross jurisdictions and are fully integrated across agencies are rare. We encourage countries to develop or deploy capacity to undertake and publish regulatory impact assessments and policy evaluation to identify policy needs and provide a basis for evidence-based policy development.

Many countries want to compare the results of their antimicrobial resistance programs to those of others nations to help gauge the effectiveness of their prevention and control practices. In our attempt to compare Canada with other nations, we encountered several challenges that must be addressed before meaningful multinational comparisons can be made. The fundamental barriers to comparison were the lack of shared targets for performance and predictive measures of success. Unique problems and policies within countries resulted in variations in goals, methods, pathogens, drugs, and priorities within and between jurisdictions. Other obstacles included: (1) lack of information on potential biases associated with different microbiological testing and sampling methods; (2) lack of information with which to conclude whether or not different programs examined comparable spectra of patients or outcomes; (3) inadequate description of the epidemiological rationale for sampling strategies; (4) use of aggregated national data that can hide regional or local variations; (5) rarity of studies designed explicitly for multinational comparison; and (6) lack of international agreement on methods, continuing education, and quality control needed to ensure program comparability. Comparison based on a country's ability to meet its internal goals for antimicrobial resistance control may be a more informative basis for a report card than specific resistance or drug use rates.

Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, 52 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, Canada Veterinary Public Health Institute, University of Bern, Schwarzenburgstrasse 155, 3097, Liebefeld, Switzerland; john.berezowski@gmail.com Department of Veterinary Microbiology, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, 52 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, Canada; vikram.misra@usask.ca

The purpose of this investigation was to identify factors associated with the clinical diagnosis of foot and mouth disease during the 2001 epidemic in the United Kingdom. Using logistic regression, we compared: (1) reports of suspect disease that resulted in the declaration of FMD to reports that did not, and (2) laboratory-positive cases to laboratory-negative cases. From 6801 reports of suspect disease, 2026 cases of FMD were identified. Suspect cases were more likely to become clinical cases if: (1) the report originated from the disease control authorities (‘active surveillance’) rather than the public, usually farmers (‘passive surveillance’); (2) cattle were the species suspected of disease, as opposed to sheep; (3) the report was filed during the peak of the epidemic; (4) the reporting premises was within 3 km of an FMD case detected within the previous 2 weeks; or (5) the report originated from certain local disease control centres. There were significant two-way interactions between: type of surveillance and species suspected of disease, type of surveillance and proximity of other infected premises, species suspected and time in the epidemic, and time in the epidemic and proximity of other infected premises. Clinical cases were more likely to be laboratory positive if: (1) they were found by passive versus active surveillance, (2) cattle were suspected of disease (versus sheep), (3) oldest lesions were less than 3 days, (4) the report was filed at any time other than the peak of the epidemic, or (5) the report originated from certain local disease control centres. Significant two-way interactions were found between: type of surveillance and species suspected of disease, and type of surveillance and time in the epidemic.

Since 1999, Cryptococcus gattii has emerged as an important pathogen of humans and animals in British Columbia, Canada. Nasal swabs and serum samples were collected from dogs and cats residing within the Coastal Douglas Fir biogeoclimatic zone on Vancouver Island, where clinical cases have been reported. Deep and superficial nasal fungal cultures of 280 dogs and 94 cats identified four (4.3%) cats and three (1.1%) dogs with C. gattii serotype B in their nasal cavity. Serum samples collected from 266 dogs and 84 cats identified six (7.1%) cats and two (0.8%) dogs with a positive cryptococcal antigen titer. Overall cats were 4.4 times more likely than dogs to be positive on one or both tests. Identification of sub-clinical infection and nasal colonization is an important step in the characterization of the outbreak of clinical cryptococcosis on Vancouver Island.

Zoonoses are fundamental determinants of community health. Preventing, identifying and managing these infections must be a central public health focus. Most current zoonoses research focuses on the interface of the pathogen and the clinically ill person, emphasizing microbial detection, mechanisms of pathogenicity and clinical intervention strategies, rather than examining the causes of emergence, persistence and spread of new zoonoses. There are gaps in the understanding of the animal determinants of emergence and the capacity to train highly qualified individuals; these are major obstacles to preventing new disease threats. The ability to predict the emergence of zoonoses and their resulting public health and societal impacts are hindered when insufficient effort is devoted to understanding zoonotic disease epidemiology, and when zoonoses are not examined in a manner that yields fundamental insight into their origin and spread.Emerging infectious disease research should rest on four pillars: enhanced communications across disciplinary and agency boundaries; the assessment and development of surveillance and disease detection tools; the examination of linkages between animal health determinants of human health outcomes; and finally, cross-disciplinary training and research. A national strategy to predict, prevent and manage emerging diseases must have a prominent and explicit role for veterinary and biological researchers. An integrated health approach would provide decision makers with a firmer foundation from which to build evidence-based disease prevention and control plans that involve complex human/animal/environmental systems, and would serve as the foundation to train and support the new cadre of individuals ultimately needed to maintain and apply research capacity in this area.

An epidemiological study of infectious hematopoietic necrosis viral disease (IHN) in farmed Atlantic salmon in British Columbia was conducted to better understand the management of this disease. The study consisted of a descriptive retrospective investigation of 18 IHN outbreaks on farms between 1992 and 1996, and a prospective surveillance program for the viral disease, after an area management plan was implemented to reduce the viral load around farms and farm-to-farm spread of the virus. The crude cumulative mortality associated with IHNV in Atlantic salmon was high (average 47%), and outbreaks lasted 5.8 months on average. On the two farms where the virus was detected during the surveillance program, IHNV was confirmed in all pens within 1 month. On two of three sites where fish were kept on farms after the initial disease outbreak subsided, IHN reoccurred within 30 weeks. The presentation of IHNV on farms, the spatial and temporal patterns of the outbreaks between 1992 and 1996, and the genetic similarity between isolates collected from nine outbreaks spanning a 5-year period, all supported the plausibility of farm-to-farm spread of the virus. Furthermore, the marked decrease in the incidence rate of IHN in farmed Atlantic salmon after the implementation of an area-based management plan aimed at reducing farm-to-farm spread of the virus also supported this hypothesis. Although the source of IHNV for the index case was not determined in this study, secondary spread of the virus between farms via management practices, such as movement of fish, co-habiting naive fish with survivors of the viral disease, and movement of equipment, likely accounted for some farm outbreaks. This suggested that many cases of IHN may be preventable using good on-farm biosecurity.

There has been, to date, little discussion about the defining features and measures of wildlife health in the literature or legislation. Much wildlife health work focuses on the detection and response to infectious or parasitic diseases; this perspective has been reinforced by the focus of the One Health initiative on wildlife as sources of emerging infections. The definition of health as "the absence of disease" lags 70 yr behind modern concepts of human health and emerging concepts of wildlife health in terms of vulnerability, resilience, and sustainability. Policies, programs, and research that focus on the integration of wildlife health with natural resource conservation, ecosystem restoration, and public health need a working definition of health that recognizes the major threats to fish and wildlife are the result of many other drivers besides pathogens and parasites, including habitat loss, globalization of trade, land-use pressure, and climate change. A modern definition of wildlife health should emphasize that 1) health is the result of interacting biologic, social, and environmental determinants that interact to affect capacity to cope with change; 2) health cannot be measured solely by what is absent but rather by characteristics of the animals and their ecosystem that affect their vulnerability and resilience; and 3) wildlife health is not a biologic state but rather a dynamic social construct based on human expectations and knowledge.

A study of the risk factors associated with mastitis in Sri Lankan dairy cattle was conducted to inform risk reduction activities to improve the quality and quantity of milk production and dairy farmer income. A cross-sectional survey of randomly selected dairy farms was undertaken to investigate 12 cow and 39 herd level and management risk factors in the Central Province. The farm level prevalence of mastitis (clinical and subclinical) was 48 %, similar to what has been found elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia. Five cow level variables, three herd level variables, and eight management variables remained significant (p

In "Airs, Waters and Places, " Hippocrates taught aspiring physicians that, to understand their patient's illness, they needed to understand their patient's environment. He recognized that people's well-being was linked to their environment. Hippocrates instructed his readers to use observations of the seasons, the water and the orientation of a city to classify the major health problems of the inhabitants. While his causal framework for explaining the pathogenesis of disease may seem rudimentary and misguided in light of today's medical understanding, Hippocrates knew that many health problems arose from our interactions with the environment and he tried to do what we continue to want to do today: to predict the occurrence of disease in order to better care for his patients.

Large amounts of animal health care data are present in veterinary electronic medical records (EMR) and they present an opportunity for companion animal disease surveillance. Veterinary patient records are largely in free-text without clinical coding or fixed vocabulary. Text-mining, a computer and information technology application, is needed to identify cases of interest and to add structure to the otherwise unstructured data. In this study EMR's were extracted from veterinary management programs of 12 participating veterinary practices and stored in a data warehouse. Using commercially available text-mining software (WordStat™), we developed a categorization dictionary that could be used to automatically classify and extract enteric syndrome cases from the warehoused electronic medical records. The diagnostic accuracy of the text-miner for retrieving cases of enteric syndrome was measured against human reviewers who independently categorized a random sample of 2500 cases as enteric syndrome positive or negative. Compared to the reviewers, the text-miner retrieved cases with enteric signs with a sensitivity of 87.6% (95%CI, 80.4-92.9%) and a specificity of 99.3% (95%CI, 98.9-99.6%). Automatic and accurate detection of enteric syndrome cases provides an opportunity for community surveillance of enteric pathogens in companion animals.