Category Archives: Wildlife animals
Streptococcus suis in wild boars from Barcelona: a potential public health risk
Wild boar populations have substantially increased in Europe during the last decades. The great adaptability of this native wild species to a wide range of habitats has also prompted its appearance in urban and suburban areas in the last years, being nowadays common in big cities like Barcelona or Berlin. This novel situation regarding urban wild boars poses several conflicts like traffic accidents, occasional aggressions or the possibility to transmit diseases to other animals and human beings.
The prionic pilgrimage
On May 22-25, 2018 the international congress PRION 2018 took place in Santiago de Compostela, since its first edition in Paris in 2009, this congress brings together experts from all over the world in prions, it is a multidisciplinary meeting that gathers from doctors to veterinarians through biochemists, biologists and bioinformatics who study the structure of the molecules to give a holistic approach to a problem that is far from having a solution: the diseases caused by protein misfolding.
Prions in the desert
Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies involve a quite diverse spectrum of hosts, from domestic animals such as cows with mad cow disease (aka Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE), wild animals such as cervids with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and even people who may suffer from Creutzfeld Jackob Disease.
First detection of West Nile Virus in a bird of prey in Catalonia
For more than 10 years IRTA-CReSA has carried out the diagnosis and technical assessment of the West Nile virus surveillance program in Catalonia as a service by the DARP. This program was initiated with the objective of detecting early the circulation of West Nile virus (WNV), a virus that can affect wild birds and equids and is transmitted by mosquito vectors to human beings.
Will the smallest RNA molecule become the secret weapon to defeat the African swine fever virus?
A work carried out at IRTA-CReSA has allowed to identify different expression patterns of porcine microRNAs in an African swine fever virus (ASFV) experimental infection in pigs. The results not only increase our knowledge of the virus-host interaction but identify possible targets for the control of this important disease for which, at the moment, there is no vaccine in the market.
Why chamois go Blind?
Infectious keratoconjunctivitis is a highly contagious ocular disease that causes inflammation of the cornea and the conjunctiva, typically caused by Mycoplasma conjunctivae in wild and domestic caprines (Caprinae Subfamily).
