BugBitten & Bizarre – some of the surprising facts we learned in 2022
Monthly Archives: December 2022
Wolves, cougars and the parasite that links them
A parasite that encysts in the brains of wolves in Yellowstone National Park is associated with changes in wolf behaviour that may increase their incidence of infection.
Protecting our feline friends: Parasitic helminths of the European wildcat and spillover to domesticated cats in Germany
Surveillance and monitoring of the prevalence and distribution of zoonotic pathogens is crucial in improving our awareness of potential ‘spillover events’, where these pathogens can be transmitted to novel host populations, including humans and often valuable (financially or sentimentally) domesticated animals.
Good news in the fight against vector-borne diseases
Krisztian Magori practices gratitude for the good news on the development of scalable, self-limiting, genetic sexing version of genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce Aedes aegypti populations, with the hope to be able to order his own batch of such mosquitoes in the near future!
Vector control – is it all in the attitude?
International travel, trade, climate change, migration and conflict can all facilitate the spread of infectious diseases and their vectors from their ‘usual’ endemic regions to non-endemic regions. Lack of knowledge and inexperience of control measures in non-endemic countries can lead to outbreaks of diseases. Pénélope Duval and her colleagues surveyed the knowledge and practices of community gardeners in urban France to the invasive Asian Tiger mosquito – the vector of the viruses that cause dengue, Zika and other diseases.