Evaluation of euthanasia and trap - neuter - return (TNR) programs in managing free-roaming cat populations

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige M. Schmidt ◽  
Todd M. Swannack ◽  
Roel R. Lopez ◽  
Margaret R. Slater

Global estimates of the number of domestic cats (Felis catus) are >400 million. Issues associated with free-roaming cats are of global importance because of animal-welfare and public-health concerns and impacts on native wildlife through predation, competition and disease transmission. In the United States, proposed control solutions for managing urban free-roaming cat populations include euthanasia and trap–neuter–return (TNR) programs. We evaluated control methods using a demographic population model for a 25-year period, with parameters estimated from an unmanaged, free-roaming cat population in Texas. We modelled euthanasia and TNR at 25%, 50% and 75% implementation rates and a 50 : 50 combination of euthanasia and TNR at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% implementation rates for 0%, 25% and 50% maximum immigration rates. We compared final population size, total number of cats treated and treatment effort relative to population reduction. Population decreases were comparable among euthanasia, TNR and a 50 : 50 combination for all treatment rates when the immigration rate was 0%; however, they were higher for euthanasia at 25% and 50% maximum immigration rates. Euthanasia required higher treatment effort than TNR. Our results indicate that immigration must be prevented and high (>50%) treatment rates implemented to reduce free-roaming cat populations.

Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 354
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Osikowicz ◽  
Kalanthe Horiuchi ◽  
Irina Goodrich ◽  
Edward B. Breitschwerdt ◽  
Bruno Chomel ◽  
...  

Cat-associated Bartonella species, which include B. henselae, B. koehlerae, and B. clarridgeiae, can cause mild to severe illness in humans. In the present study, we evaluated 1362 serum samples obtained from domestic cats across the U.S. for seroreactivity against three species and two strain types of Bartonella associated with cats (B. henselae type 1, B. henselae type 2, B. koehlerae, and B. clarridgeiae) using an indirect immunofluorescent assay (IFA). Overall, the seroprevalence at the cutoff titer level of ≥1:64 was 23.1%. Seroreactivity was 11.1% and 3.7% at the titer level cutoff of ≥1:128 and at the cutoff of ≥1:256, respectively. The highest observation of seroreactivity occurred in the East South-Central, South Atlantic, West North-Central, and West South-Central regions. The lowest seroreactivity was detected in the East North-Central, Middle Atlantic, Mountain, New England, and Pacific regions. We observed reactivity against all four Bartonella spp. antigens in samples from eight out of the nine U.S. geographic regions.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 814-816
Author(s):  
JAMES L. TROUTMAN ◽  
JEFFREY A. WRIGHT ◽  
DONALD L. SHIFRIN

Pediatric hotlines gives parents and interested parties the opportunity to call pediatricians with questions regarding child health issues. More than a dozen such hotlines have been held by state chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics in all regions of the United States. They were promoted by regional newspapers and generally preceded by feature articles centered on child health concerns. The first hotline was held in 1987 by pediatricians in Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia in conjunction with the Washington, DC, chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the newspaper USA Today. Seattle-area pediatricians and The Seattle Times sponsored a 1-day, 8-hour hotline in March 1989.


2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. E10 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Bonda ◽  
Sunil Manjila ◽  
Prachi Mehndiratta ◽  
Fahd Khan ◽  
Benjamin R. Miller ◽  
...  

The human prion diseases, or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, have captivated our imaginations since their discovery in the Fore linguistic group in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s. The mysterious and poorly understood “infectious protein” has become somewhat of a household name in many regions across the globe. From bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly identified as mad cow disease, to endocannibalism, media outlets have capitalized on these devastatingly fatal neurological conditions. Interestingly, since their discovery, there have been more than 492 incidents of iatrogenic transmission of prion diseases, largely resulting from prion-contaminated growth hormone and dura mater grafts. Although fewer than 9 cases of probable iatrogenic neurosurgical cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) have been reported worldwide, the likelihood of some missed cases and the potential for prion transmission by neurosurgery create considerable concern. Laboratory studies indicate that standard decontamination and sterilization procedures may be insufficient to completely remove infectivity from prion-contaminated instruments. In this unfortunate event, the instruments may transmit the prion disease to others. Much caution therefore should be taken in the absence of strong evidence against the presence of a prion disease in a neurosurgical patient. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) have devised risk assessment and decontamination protocols for the prevention of iatrogenic transmission of the prion diseases, incidents of possible exposure to prions have unfortunately occurred in the United States. In this article, the authors outline the historical discoveries that led from kuru to the identification and isolation of the pathological prion proteins in addition to providing a brief description of human prion diseases and iatrogenic forms of CJD, a brief history of prion disease nosocomial transmission, and a summary of the CDC and WHO guidelines for prevention of prion disease transmission and decontamination of prion-contaminated neurosurgical instruments.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Panagiotou

The recent wave of megamergers sweeping the US food industry has raised significant concerns regarding “conglomerate” market power. Beef processors have been merging with pork and/or poultry processors (and vice versa). Concurrently, consumers have changed their attitude toward diet and health. The poultry industry has been more responsive to the changes in consumers’ lifestyles than the red meat industry by providing products which address health concerns. As a consequence, consumers exhibit stronger preference for chicken and are more willing to substitute chicken for red meat. The objective of this study is to examine the sustainability of collusion between multiproduct meat processing firms, under different values of the own-price demand flexibility of chicken as well as cross-price elasticities of demand between the markets of chicken and red meat. The findings indicate that the less (more) responsive demand for chicken gets to changes in its own price (price of red meat), the easier it gets for firms to sustain collusion.


Parasite ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Tielemans ◽  
Tomoko Otsuki ◽  
Tara Cheesman ◽  
Fiona Selmes ◽  
Anthony Pfefferkorn ◽  
...  

Esafoxolaner is a purified afoxolaner enantiomer with insecticidal and acaricidal properties. It is combined with eprinomectin and praziquantel, nematodicidal and cestodicidal compounds, in a novel topical endectoparasiticide formulation for cats. This novel formulation was tested in four field studies, in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia. In all studies, naturally flea-infested domestic cats were treated with the novel formulation at the label dose and conditions of use. The main objective, identical in the four studies, was to assess efficacy on fleas, based on comparison of mean number of fleas found on infested cats before and one month after treatment. Tolerance to the product was also evaluated in the four studies. Otherwise, the studies had some differences in their design and secondary objectives, for example testing for a reduction in flea infestation-related cutaneous signs, testing of one treatment or of three monthly treatments, and use of a positive control group. In the four studies, a total of 307 cats were treated with the novel formulation. The reduction of fleas one month after treatment was 97.7%, 98.8%, 100% and 99.7% in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, respectively. There were no significant health abnormalities attributed to treatment in any of the studies.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsokyi Choera ◽  
Brittney Jung-Hynes ◽  
Derrick J. Chen

Abstract Background: Group B Streptococcal (GBS) infections in the United States are a leading cause of meningitis and sepsis in newborns. The CDC, therefore recommends GBS screening for all pregnant women at 35–37 weeks of gestation and administration of intrapartum prophylaxis (in those that tested positive) as an effective means of controlling disease transmission. Several FDA approved molecular diagnostic tests are available for rapid and accurate detection of GBS in antepartum women. Method: In this study, we report a clinical comparison of the Xpert GBS LB assay and a novel FDA-cleared test, Revogene GBS LB assay. A total of 250 vaginal-rectal swabs from women undergoing prenatal screening were submitted to the University of Wisconsin’s clinical microbiology laboratory for GBS testing. Results: We found 96.8% of samples were concordant between the two tests, while 3.2% were discordant with a positive percent agreement of 98.0% and a negative percent agreement of 96.5% between the Revogene GBS LB assay and the GeneXpert GBS LB assay. Conclusion: Overall, we report that both assays perform well for the detection of GBS colonization in pregnant women.


Author(s):  
Senqi Zhang ◽  
Li Sun ◽  
Daiwei Zhang ◽  
Pin Li ◽  
Yue Liu ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundMental health illness is a growing problem in recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health concerns (such as fear and loneliness) have been actively discussed on social media.ObjectiveIn this study, we aim to examine mental health discussions on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and infer the demographic composition of Twitter users who had mental health concerns.MethodsCOVID-19 related tweets from March 5th, 2020 to January 31st, 2021 were collected through Twitter streaming API using COVID-19 related keywords (e.g., “corona”, “covid19”, “covid”). By further filtering using mental health keywords (e.g., “depress”, “failure”, “hopeless”), we extracted mental health-related tweets from the US. Topic modeling using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation model was conducted to monitor users’ discussions surrounding mental health concerns. Demographic inference using deep learning algorithms (including Face++ and Ethnicolr) was performed to infer the demographic composition of Twitter users who had mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.ResultsWe observed a positive correlation between mental health concerns on Twitter and the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Topic modeling showed that “stay-at-home”, “death poll” and “politics and policy” were the most popular topics in COVID-19 mental health tweets. Among Twitter users who had mental health concerns during the pandemic, Males, White, and 30-49 age group people were more likely to express mental health concerns. In addition, Twitter users from the east and west coast had more mental health concerns.ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on mental health concerns on Twitter in the US. Certain groups of people (such as Males, White) were more likely to have mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. S62-S69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myriam Glémaud ◽  
Lourdes Illa ◽  
Marisa Echenique ◽  
Victoria Bustamente-Avellaneda ◽  
Shirley Gazabon ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Terri Rebmann ◽  
Ruth Carrico

Emerging infectious diseases impact healthcare providers in the United States and globally. Nurses play a vital role in protecting the health of patients, visitors, and fellow staff members during routine practice and biological disasters, such as bioterrorism, pandemics, or outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases. One vital nursing practice is proper infection prevention procedures. Failure to practice correctly and consistently can result in occupational exposures or disease transmission. This article reviews occupational health risks, and pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions for nurses who provide care to patients with new or re-emerging infectious diseases. Infection prevention education based on existing infection prevention competencies is critical to ensure adequate knowledge and safe practice both every day and in times of limited resources. Challenges specific to infectious disease disasters are discussed, as well as the role of microorganisms and nurse education for infection prevention.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 232596711989143
Author(s):  
Adam J. Beer ◽  
Tracy M. Tauro ◽  
Michael L. Redondo ◽  
David R. Christian ◽  
Brian J. Cole ◽  
...  

The use of allografts has become a vital option for orthopaedic surgeons in the treatment of a variety of musculoskeletal lesions, ranging from osteochondral defects in the glenohumeral joint to meniscal deficiency in the young athlete. Nevertheless, barriers to treating a patient with an allograft-based procedure may arise from concerns over disease transmission, the navigation of tissue banks that supply allografts, the process of obtaining insurance approval, or optimal storage methods. This review serves to support orthopaedic surgeons in the incorporation of allografts into their practice by quelling these potential concerns. Fresh osteochondral allografts, fresh-frozen meniscal allografts, soft tissue allografts, and off-the-shelf cartilage products are the focus of this review amid broad overviews of allograft safety and tissue bank practices in the United States.


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