How a Tiny Worm is Irritating the Most Majestic of Giraffes
What is a fly to a giraffe? It’s difficult to imagine a single insect even coming to the attention of these peculiar animals, which weigh in at thousands of pounds and routinely stretch their necks to heights of more than 14 feet. In Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, however, Michael B. Brown, a wildlife conservation […]
Are we prepared for emerging and re-emerging diseases? Experience and lessons from epidemics that occurred in Tanzania during the last five decades
This paper reviews preparedness for containing and controlling emerging and re-emerging diseases drawing lessons from disease events that occurred in animal and human populations in the last five decades (1961-2011). A comprehensive analysis based on retrieval and analysis of grey and published literature as well as reported cases was carried out to document type and […]
Complete genomic sequence analyses of the first group A giraffe rotavirus reveals close evolutionary relationship with rotaviruses infecting other members of the Artiodactyla.
Group A Rotaviruses (RVA) have been established as significant contributory agents of acute gastroenteritis in young children and many animal species. In 2008, we described the first RVA strain detected in a giraffe calf (RVA/Giraffe-wt/IRL/GirRV/2008/G10P[11]), presenting with acute diarrhoea. Molecular characterisation of the VP7 and VP4 genes revealed the bovine-like genotypes G10 and P[11], respectively. […]
Equine Herpesvirus Type 9 in Giraffe with Encephalitis
Herpesviruses have been isolated from many mammals. Herpesvirus infection in natural hosts is often mild and is usually followed by a latent infection; however, cross-species herpesvirus infections cause severe and fatal diseases. These findings may explain why the giraffe had lesions while the zebras in the same enclosure did not. Outcome: The fact the zebras […]
Evidence for the Presence of Two Novel Pestivirus Species
The genus Pestivirus of the family Flaviviridae comprises four species, namely Bovine viral diarrhea virus-1 (BVDV-1), BVDV-2, Border disease virus (BDV), and Classical swine fever virus (CSFV). Comparative analyses of partial sequences have suggested that pestivirus isolates from giraffe (Giraffe-1) and reindeer (Reindeer-1) are distinct from the established species (Becher et al., Virology 262, 64–71, 1999). In this study, we report the complete genomic sequences of pestivirus […]