Surveillance of bovine tuberculosis in Sicily

Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) by M. bovis is a chronic infectious disease of cattle that can represent a risk to human health. bTB European Eradication Plans are based on tuberculin testing and slaughtering of reactive subjects. Despite control measures have been applied in Italy since 1964, illness is still present in Sicily. On 2012, regional official data reported an herd infection prevalence of 3.09% and an herd incidence of 2.37%. In the same year, head prevalence was of 0.70%. This study has analyzed the results of the control activity performed on cattle farm in Sicily between 2009-2012, with the aim to evaluate the bTB prevalence and incidence.

Importance of dogs as sentinels of West Nile Virus activity in urban and suburban areas

Background: West Nile Virus (WNV) is a virus included in the Japanese encephalitis sero-complex within the genus Flavivirus. In August 2010, cases of West Nile disease were reported for the first time in Sicily. Neurological symptomswere observed in native horses resident in the rural areas around the province of Trapani, in the western part of the island. During the epidemic, important critical questions onwhen the viruswas introduced in the area and aboutwhether the virus had circulated/was circulating in theurban area, emerged and needed to be answered. A retrospective study using dog serum samples was designed to answer these questions. Methods: Between January 2009 and September 2010, …

Modello di analisi quantitativa del rischio Listeria Monocytogenes in salmone affumicato

Ovine Catarrhal fever (bluetongue): Analysis of Culicoides species in seropositive farms

Bluetongue (BT) is an orbiviral disease of wild and domestic ruminants, mainly sheep. In Sicily, the first Bluetongue outbreak occurred in October 2000; there have been 76 recorded outbreaks so far. The National Surveillance Plan, based on European Union Commission Decision 138/2001/CE, establishes serological and entomological surveys. This plan consists of controls of seronegative cattle, called 'sentry' as indicators for the presence and circulation of virus in defined areas. To check the seroconversions, the regional territory has been subdivided in 400 km2 areas including 58 seronegative cattle, periodically checked by serological tests. All positive sera have been tested to detect the…

Night-time cloud cover estimation

In this paper a method for cloud cover assessment at night-time (when only thermal infrared data are available) is presented. It is based on the analysis of long wave radiation transfer processes in partially cloudy areas, which led to the formulation of a simplified model of the surface–cloud–atmosphere system. The model was implemented in an operational and iterative algorithm to solve the radiative equations. The algorithm was validated using ground data collected at four meteorological stations in Argentina during November 1997 and May–June 1998, which were compared to cloudiness derived from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer therma…

Spatial distribution of brucellosis in sheep and goats in Sicily from 2001 to 2005

Spatial analysis is making an increasingly important contribution to surveillance measures due to its ability to enable immediate visualization of information on the phenomenon studied. The authors describe the spatial distribution of prevalence and incidence of brucellosis in small ruminants in Sicily between 2001 and 2005. the study was conducted by integrating geografic information system (GIS)tecnology (MapInfo Professional 7.0) with SaTscan software to the perform an epidemiological analysis of the municipalities and to locate problem areas. A comparison between the thematic maps produced for brucellosis in small ruminants on the basis of prevalence and incidence data for each individu…