Archive

25 February

West Nile virus and Usutu virus infections in the European Union: the public health and animal health challenges

The webinar is organised by experts from the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie and the Padova University Hospital, Italy.

Programme

17 March

Making links between zoonoses, food production and WASH

The webinar will apply a One Health perspective to address overlooked links between zoonoses, food production and WASH by exploring two different approaches.

Programme

1 June

The silent Antimicrobial Resistance pandemic urges a concerted global response

Welcome to join us in the event "The silent Antimicrobial Resistance pandemic urges a concerted global response - but what needs to be done?" - This event is hosted by SIANI.

Programme

2 June

Seminar: Antimicrobial resistance in Agrifood systems

Welcome to this lunch seminar on antimicrobial resistance in agrifood systems presented by Dr. Junxia Song, Senior Animal Health Officer at the joint Centre for Zoonotic Diseases and AMR, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Programme

14 June

Seminar: Effective WASH to prevent infections and reduce the emergence of AMR

The webinar will apply a One Health perspective to address links between antimicrobial use (AMU), antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and WASH by exploring the important roles of WASH and wastewater management to prevent infections and reduce the spread of infectious diseases, the subsequent use of antimicrobials and the spread of AMR.

Programme

5 September

GASL webinar: Antimicrobial use in livestock – the high-scale producers’ and international organizations’ perspective

The Action Network Livestock Antimicrobial Partnership of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock will hold a panel discussion about the high scale producers’ and international organizations’ perspective on antimicrobial use in livestock.

Programme

21 November

Methods and applications for Next Generation Sequencing

SLU Committee for Global Animal Diseases in collaboration with NGI, SciLifeLab welcomes you to a seminar about Next Generation Sequencing.

Programme

20 October

Seminar with John Gilleard about anthelmintic resistance

SLU Committee for Global Animal Diseases welcomes you to a seminar about anthelmintic resistance by Professor John Gilleard at the University of Calgary.

Programme

13 December

Animal health and welfare – good for people and planet

Welcome to the launch of the GASL booklet Animal health and welfare for sustainable livestock systems by Ulf Magnusson, Sofia Boqvist, Rebecca Doyle and Timothy Robinson.

Programme

9 December

CGD award for best scientific publication 2019

Welcome to celebrate Dr. Lena-Mari Tamminen – the winner of the best scientific publication 2019. Read motivation here

CGD lunch seminar

Place: in Tanngrisner 1, VHC

Presenters:
Paulius Baltrusis, BVF, SLU: Anthelmintic resistance in the pathogenic endoparasites of small ruminants

Laingshun Huoy, BVF, SLU: Salmonella spp. outbreak among animal meats and leafy green vegetable in Cambodia

8 December

The Eustace Montgomery seminar

– honouring the first hundred years of ASF-research and exploring the hurdles for control of African swine fever in smallholder farming settings. Programme

2 December

Seminar on small ruminants, smallholders, global food security and emerging zoonoses.

Audhumbla VHC. Programme

22 October

Internal network meeting: Doing research differently

– how to maximise the usefulness and use of research for policy and practice. Programme

15 June

The camel is the animal

Webinar on "The camel is the animal – Milk production meeting the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals". Programme

7 May

Network meeting – How can we work across disciplines to improve global food security?

Programme

27 April

Seminar: Research on global animal diseases in sub-Saharan Africa

Programme

1 February–31 March

Open online course: Effective livestock production with low use of antibiotics

Topics covered

Webinar: Animals and humans from a pandemic perspective

2020-12-01. More information about the webinar "Animals and humans from a pandemic perspective".

One Health webinar #4 - “Vector borne diseases”

2020-10-13. Speakers: Professor Baldwyn Torto, Icipe and Sharon Hill, SLU. More information about the webinar about vector brone diseases.

Seminar: Why do we need multidisciplinary collaboration to successfully prevent livestock diseases?

2020-04-23. Speakers: Professor Susanna Sternberg Lewerin and Associate Professor Klara Fischer. More information about the seminar about livestock diseases.

Seminar: Milk as a tool to fight poverty

2020-03-18. A cross-disciplinary seminar with focus on global milk production with special emphasis on low-income countries. Programme and more information about the seminar about milk and poverty.

Workshop on antimicrobial resistance

2020-03-04. A workshop about antimicrobial resistance in collaboration with SLU Future Animals, Nature and Health. The aim of the workshop was to survey AMR research within SLU, create a network for AMR researchers and plan AMR activities that can be organized by CGD and SLU Future Animals, Nature and Health in 2020. Programme and more information about the AMR-worskhop.

CGD award for best scientific publication 2019

Deadline for submission of nominees was 1 April. The winner will be announced in May.

Seminar on important transboundary animal diseases of small livestock

A seminar organized in Uppsala 2019-12-12.

• More information about the seminar on important transboundary animal diseases .

CGD award for best scientific publication 2018

The winner of the best scientific publication 2018 was Dr. Paulius Baltrušis.

• More information about the CGD award.

Country-led agri-food solutions for improved nutrition and health: What have we learned?

A seminar with Dr John McDermott, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).

• Programme for the seminar with Dr John McDermott.

"Taenia solium: the vicious worm" & "Cartilage tissue regeneration in vitro"

CGD Lunch seminar 24 April in Tanngrisner 1, VHC, SLU with Dr. Kabemba Evans Mwape & Dr. Eugene Bwalya from the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zambia.

Link to program for the seminar with Dr. Kabemba Evans Mwape & Dr. Eugene Bwalya (pdf).

The Brucella vaccine competition & the challenges with global equine welfare

Lunch seminar 19 April with Professor Brian Perry - a world-leading expert in applied veterinary epidemiology who has made outstanding contributions to animal welfare and animal health in developing countries.

Link to program for the seminar with Professor Brian Perry (pdf).

Salmonella control in cattle

On April 6, different national approaches, situations, and strategies to Salmonella control in cattle were presented and discussed by Prof Liza Rosenbaum, Section for Animal Welfare and Disease Control, Copenhagen University, Dr Jonas Carlsson, VÄXA Sverige, and Dr Maarten Weber, GD Animal Health, The Netherlands.

Presentations

• Prof Liza Rosenbaum. Danish approach to control of salmonellain cattle (pdf).
• Dr Jonas Carlsson. Control of Salmonella in Swedish cattle herds (pdf)
• Dr Maarten Weber. Control of Salmonella spp. in Dutch dairy herds (pdf).

Linking One Health Research and Capacity Building to Communities: A case of brucellosis zoonotic disease study in Hoima District, Uganda

Seminar 10 May, with Dr. Lawrence Mugisha, Associate Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity, Makerere University.

He is involved in EcoHealth scientific research with major emphasis on infectious diseases at the wildlife-human-livestock interface (One Health Concept).

Challenges for disease control: need for a South - North collaboration

Seminar 11 May.

• Programme for Challenges for disease control: need for a South - North collaboration (pdf)

Zoonoses and animals in the city

Seminar Wednesday 24 May at 9.00-12.00 in lecture hall Ratatosk, entrance floor VHC.

• Programme for Zoonoses and animals in the city (pdf)

Winner of the 2017 CGD award for best scientific publication

Wednesday 14 June Elisabeth Lindahl-Rajala received the award and presented the study Detection and characterization of Brucella spp. in bovine milk in small-scale urban and peri-urban farming in Tajikistan.

Biosecurity and Safety of the Broiler Meat Chain in Egypt: Facing Challenges through Scientific Collaboration, the Model of the Swedish Research Links Project

Seminar Thursday 17^th September, 14:00,   Room Tanngrisner 1, VHC, SLU

Presenter: Dr Ihab Habib, Lecturer in Veterinary Public Health and Epidemiology, Murdoch University – Perth, Western Australia.

Food security remains at the top of Egypt’s priority list of which securing sufficient animal protein is the most challenging task. Poultry production in both the commercial and rural sectors can provide a quick and a most cost effective solutions for this nutritional problem. Commercial poultry production in Egypt contributes annual production of 1 billion broiler birds and 8 billion table eggs. Since 2006, the Egyptian poultry sector has been severely damaged by continuous outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which highlighted serious challenges in the broiler farms. Poor biosecurity and hygienic practices at broiler farms, combined with a distribution chain dominated by wet market sale and consumer preference to freshly slaughtered birds, provide an excellent environment for spread of many broiler meat borne diseases, notably campylobacteriosis. In Egypt, Campylobacter is a leading cause of pediatric diarrhea with infants and one year olds experiencing 1.2 and 0.4 episodes per year, respectively. In such hyper-endemic settings, the burden of Campylobacter diarrhea could be substantial. The gap of knowledge about the epidemiology of Campylobacter in food sources hinders accurate assessment of the human health burden. Funded by the Swedish Research Council, Partners from Sweden (the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Swedish National Veterinary Institute), Egypt (High Institute of Public Health, Alexandria University), and Australia (School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University) will be collaborating in order to generate baseline data on prevalence and counts of Campylobacter in retail chicken meat, study the genotypic diversity, antimicrobial resistance, and virulence of Campylobacter isolates; and to develop a quantitative model for human infection risk from consumption of broiler meat in Egypt.

Prior joining Murdoch University, Dr. Habib worked as a researcher in the Laboratory of Food Microbiology at Ghent University in Belgium, and lecturer in the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (Division of Veterinary Public Health) at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and a scientist at the Bio-resources Unit of the Austrian Institute of Technology in Austria, and lecturer of Food Hygiene in the High Institute of Public Health at Alexandria University in Egypt.

Annual report 2015

The annual report 2015 (in Swedish; pdf)

Exotic livestock diseases - a Swedish issue?

Why conduct research on infectious diseases we don't have? Is the money not better spent by focusing on the endemic diseases affecting livestock?

Sweden has been very successful in controlling and eradicating infectious animal diseases, including zoonoses, throughout the years, examples being brucellosis and Classical Swine Fever. However, during the last decade we have experienced outbreaks of exotic diseases, such as Bluetongue and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. Outbreaks of other exotic diseases have also occurred in Europe, the most recent example being African Swine Fever in Eastern Europe. Altogether, these diseases have serious consequences for food security, animal welfare, public health, economy and international trade. On the other hand, it is the endemic diseases that are most costly for the livestock producers. What are the justifications to do research on exotic livestock diseases in Sweden and Europe?

These questions were discussed during an international seminar at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences.

• Brucellosis – an emerging disease with public health implications? Dr Bruno Garin-Bastuji, French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety.
  • Bruno Garin-Bastuji's presentation (pdf)
• African Swine Fever emerging in Europe – what can we learn from Africa? Dr Cecilia Hultén, National Veterinary Institute (SVA) and Dr Karl Ståhl, SVA and SLU.
• Challenges to on-farm biosecurity; international differences and similarities. Prof Susanna Sternberg Lewerin, SLU.
• International and national perspectives on Peste des Petits Ruminants research. Dr Jonas Johansson Wensman, SLU.
• What is the risk for spread of exotic disease carrying vectors within Europe? Dr Anders Lindström, SVA
• Discussion.  Prof Ulf Magnusson, SLU-global.

Annual report 2014

The annual report 2014 (pdf; in Swedish)

Identifying, assessing and communicating emerging threats to human health posed by infectious diseases - how is it done?

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is an EU agency aimed at strengthening Europe's defences against infectious diseases.

On Wednesday 13^th March, 2013, Birgitta de Jong, a senior expert from ECDC, presented how the agency is working with infectious diseases in Europe and how threats against human health are detected. She also gave practical examples of how different networks are acting in ECDC.

Antimicrobial resistance - how a problem anywhere can end up anywhere else

Antimicrobial resistance is an increasing challenge for public and animal health. Moreover, certain types of antimicrobial resistance can spread from animals to man or the other way around. Multidisciplinary collaboration is key for any strategy aiming to contain the problem

This was discussed on April 23rd 2013 by Assoc Prof Christina Greko, the National Veterinary Institute.

Contagious animal diseases - the science behind trade policies and regulations

As international trade is growing the risk of spreading severe animal diseases is increasing.  Outbreaks of these diseases have a negative impact on regional and global food security and cause trade restrictions, with subsequent long-term economic effects.

This symposium discussed the complex of problems associated with trade and control of contagious animal diseases from a scientific perspective.

A brief summary of the symposium (pdf).

Presentations

Click on the titel to download the presentation as a pdf-file.

• The magnitude and value of international trade with animal products (pdf), Dr Erik Fahlbeck, Deputy Director General and chief analyst, Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication
• The Swedish perspective on international trade of animals and animal products (pdf), Dr Bengt Larsson,  Head of disease control strategies, Swedish Board of Agriculture
• Economics of animal-derived food – costs and benefits in a global market (pdf), Prof.  Katharina Stärk, SOFOSO, Switzerland
• Science Versus Policy in Controlling Transboundary Animal Diseases (pdf),  Dr. Klaus Depner, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany
• Foot and Mouth Disease vaccination is effective: Quantification of FMD transmission with and without vaccination (pdf), Dr. Aldo Dekker, Central Veterinary Institute of Wageningen UR,  the NL
• The impact of contagious animal disease on food and nutrition security and human health (pdf), Dr. Delia Grace, ILRI, Kenya
• Emerging science, public pressure and the vagaries of policy-making (pdf), Prof. William Hueston,  University of Minnesota, the US

Prof. Susanna Sternberg Lewerin was the moderator of the day.

Participatory epidemiology

A seminar on Participatory Epidemiology was held on Oct 18th, 2013, by Dr. Delia Grace, the International Livestock Research Institute. The seminar was organised together with the National Veterinary Institute.

During the seminar the theory of participatory epidemiology was discussed, illustrated by some practical examples. There was also a discussion on how to validate and present results obtained from Participatory Epidemiology.

Dynamic drivers of disease emergence in Africa

A number of factors have been proposed to contribute to the emergence of infectious diseases, but the mechanisms behind this are not always well understood, and sometimes the effects of single factors can be contradictory. To get a better understanding of drivers of disease a number of case studies are being conducted in Africa.

A study from Kenya focusing on the effects of land use in the shape of irrigation schemes was discussed . Irrigation schemes may contribute to changes in the incidence of vector-borne diseases, as well as changes in biodiversity among birds and mammals, and thereby also change the dynamics of other diseases.

This seminar was held by Dr Johanna Lindahl, SLU postdoc at International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya on dec 13th, 2013.

Annual report 2013

The annual report (in Swedish; pdf).

Risk and threats - the way to research success or panic?

We are often faced with challenges of how to communicate research in a society perspective without exaggerate risks. We are also focusing on risks in research applications at the same time as we discuss how to handle risks at a reasonable level.

Are we exaggerating risks to get research funding? Is it worth doing research on non-risks? What is the role of media?

This was discussed during a seminar Feb 16, 2012 by Anna Olofsson, professor in sociology at the Mid University, Östersund and Head of the Risk and Crisis Research Center. Prof Olofsson gave a talk on risk communication and risk perception. This was followed by a panel discussion.

Disease transmission in a superorganism system

In honey bees transmission of pathogens occur at both the individual level (between bees) and at the colony level (between colonies). Furthermore, both vertical and horizontal pathogen transmission occur at both levels. High virulence at the individual level will increase pathogen fitness only if this translates to increased transmission at the colony level.

On Feb 29, 2012 a seminar was held that discussed pathogen transmission in honey bees, presented some important pathogens (in particular viruses) and how they are transmitted, and described how honey bees can be used as a model system for disease transmission in mammals.

Invited speakers from the Department of Ecology, SLU were:

• Ingemar Fries
• Joachim de Miranda
• Eva Forsgren
• Olle Terenius

Classical Swine Fever in China: current problems, control measures and future perspectives

This seminar was given on 28th Sept 2012 and discussed the Classical swine fever virus (CSFV), one of the major problems in pig production in China. Even though the famous vaccine C-strain against CSF was invented in China 60 years ago, classical swine fever remains a major threat on animal health and welfare.

Them seminar was given by Prof. Hua-Ji Qiu, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute (HVRI), China. Prof. Qiu illustrated his findings on the vaccine and his research on development a novel marker vaccine.

Infection biology of Borrelia spirochetes

Inauguration of the CGD

The inauguration of the CGD took place on Nov 8, 2011, with a seminar focusing on the global importance of contagious animal diseases.

• Assistant Vice chancellor Johan Schnürer and Vice dean for research and cooperation Lotta Berg welcomed the participants and emphasized the importance of the CGD, both from a SLU and a VH faculty perspective.
• Dr. David Ward, veterinary consultant with vast experience from the FAO, was invited as the keynote speaker. He held a presentation on global brucellosis control and the importance of SLU’s research on contagious animal diseases.
  • David Ward's presentation (pdf).
• Prof. Mikael Berg presented past, present and future aspects on avian influenza
• Dr. Johanna Lindahl exhibited the importance of Japanese encephalitis virus in urban pig farming
  • Johanna Lindahl's presentation (pdf).
• Prof. Richard Zeurner presented leptospirosis as a zoonotic disease of global importance
  • Richard Zeurner's presentation (pdf).
• Assoc. prof. Susanna Sternberg Lewerin finished by discussing research as a way of improving animal disease contingency.
  • Susanna Sternberg Lewerin's presentation Research to increase preparedness for disease outbreaks (pdf)
    

Will Rift valley fever be the next epizootic in Europe?

This was discussed during a seminar on Nov 25, SLU.

• Dr Osama Ahmed Hassan from the Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan and Dept of Clinical Microbiology at Umeå University was invited key note speaker. He gave a talk on Rift Valley fever: from the local to global concern. Lessons learnt from the 2007 outbreak in Sudan.
  • Osama Ahmed Hassan's presentation (pdf).

This was followed by presentations on:

• Historical spred of Rift Valley Fever. Susanna Sternberg Lewerin, Assoc Prof, Dept of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health
  • Susanna Sternberg Lewerin's presentation HistoricalHistorical spreadspread ofof RVFRVF (pdf).
• Rift Valley fever virus transmission and infection mechanisms. Magnus Evander, PhD, Professor Virology, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Division of Virology, Umeå University
  • Magnus Evander's presentation (pdf).
• Medical countermeasures against Rift Valley fever.Jonas Näslund, PhD, Department of CBRN Defence and Security, Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), Umeå
  • Jonas Näslund's presentation (pdf).

The seminar was organised in cooperation with The Centre for Climate Change and Animal Health, National Veterinary Institute and Infection Ecology & Epidemiology network.

International course in Control and Research of Infectious Diseases

This course was given Dec 6-13, 2011 for veterinarians from the Tajiki Agrarian University (TAU) in Tajikistan and is a component in a SLU - TAU research cooperation.