A short One Health video out of the University of Dublin

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Microbial source tracking to evaluate links between human, animal and environmental health: Tuesday, February 25th

This past week’s One Health Intellectual Exchange Group’s topic focusing on microbial source tracking in bodies of water was presented by Dr. Jill Stewart.  As an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Stewart develops techniques to detect and track pathogens in water.  Dr. Stewart’s current research projects involve water quality evaluation associated with land application of waste products and water quality evaluation associated with urbanization on watersheds.  Her work with environmental sciences show how environmental impacts can affect human health. During the presentation, Dr. Stewart addressed the following learning objectives: Name a standard indicator used to detect fecal pollution of surface waters. List three issues associated with the use of traditional fecal indicator bacteria to monitor water quality. Define microbial source tracking and name a marker that can be used to track...
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Black Bear Habitat Fragmentation Leads to more Human Conflicts in Florida

This week, human-black bear interaction in residential areas between Ocala National Forest and Orlando, FL made headlines after a bear bit a woman in her garage.  This problem is not new.  Both bear and human populations in Florida have been growing since the 1970s, and poor housing development plans have fragmented the bears’ habitats as building expands ever closer to Ocala National Forest.  Conflicts have increased because of misunderstandings that could benefit from a One Health approach.  Experts on bear behavior from the Bear Management Program for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission advise maintaining a contiguous habitat for the bears and that bears are easily habituated to humans.  Public education campaigns to advise residents against approaching bears, feeding bears, or failing to secure garbage from bears should be reinforced. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140415-black-bear-florida-attack-habitat-wildlife-conservat...
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Deforestation and Emerging Infectious Diseases

Many are aware of the environmental consequences of deforestation: trees absorb carbon, and in a world of escalating carbon levels, this natural process is critical to the effort of slowing global warming. What is less well-known about deforestation, is the part it plays in public health for both humans and animals. In this article, Laura Kahn illustrates the role of deforestation in the spread of emerging infectious diseases among both humans and animals. She does this through the story of the Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia, an event that continues to affect Southeast Asia both directly and indirectly. Kahn outlines the sequence of events that followed a mass deforestation in Malaysia in 1997, the focus of many studies concerning Nipah virus. Being forced from their natural habitat , tropical fruit bats began to feed from fruits in orchards through which pigs roamed and fed. It is through this exposure that an outbreak of the virus spread throughout the newly industrialized p...
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