The old battle against potato virus Y (PVY) is becoming harder there, noted Tyler MacKenzie, research and development co-ordinator at the Agricultural Certification Services Lab of Potatoes New Brunswick, and it’s a sneaky problem. Infected plants are hard to spot. With the strains the region is dealing with, there often aren’t a lot of above-ground symptoms to warn of a budding issue.

WHY IT MATTERS: Manitoba Agriculture is on the watch for aphid populations, known vectors for PVY, every year.

PVY remains the top cause of mosaic disease in potatoes, bringing down yields and tainting seed stocks, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Growers know it by its common signs: stunted growth, vein banding, leaf drop and early death of plants, with infected potato crops often showing dwarfed size and crinkled leaves.

It’s also an insect management problem. The virus hangs out on the mouthparts of aphids who have fed on infected plants, spreading through a field. It doesn’t take much PVY in a field for seed potatoes to be rejected, resources published by AAFC note.

Necrotic strains like PVYntn have made the problem worse, according to research by MacKenzie and other potato virologists with the Agricultural Certification Services Lab.

These strains cause brownish necrotic rings in tubers while producing minimal leaf symptoms.

Research from potato commodity groups shows that the newer strains of the virus spread faster than older varieties, affecting more plants even when individual impacts were lower. The strains also cause severe tuber necrosis in susceptible varieties.

The problem has grown as New Brunswick’s potato industry consolidated, attendees heard. The number of seed growers has declined, while more operations mix seed production with processing crops.

“In recent years, you can see that the exclusive seed growers … managed to keep their PVY levels low, but the mixed growers really lost control of their PVY,” MacKenzie said.

Why management matters

But the data also showed growers using strict management practices kept infection rates low even during severe aphid years.

The virus can overwinter in tubers left in the field and is easily transmitted during seed cutting operations, or when poor handling causes tissue damage. Aphids, especially the green peach aphid, are the primary mode of transmission. Alternative host plants include other members of the nightshade, goosefoot and legume families.

The most effective control measure is using clean seed.

Fields planted with seed containing around two per cent PVY had five times the failure rate in bad years compared to cleaner seed, MacKenzie said.

Oil sprays as an aphid control also reduced infection rates. Growers applying at least two litres per acre of mineral oil weekly saw infection rates drop by half or a third compared to those using lower concentrations, research showed. Combined with strategic insecticide use and monitoring through aphid alert programs, these tools help growers control the disease, attendees heard.

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The government had confirmed late on Wednesday that a sample tested positive for the viral disease, saying it came from a commercial poultry farm in the municipality of Anta Gorda.

“The official protocols to mitigate (risks) have been put in place and the surrounding area continues to be monitored,” ABPA said.

Newcastle is a viral disease that affects domestic and wild birds, causing respiratory problems, among other symptoms. Its notification is mandatory as per guidelines from the World Organization for Animal Health.

The last confirmed cases of Newcastle disease in Brazil occurred in 2006 in subsistence birds in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul, the agriculture ministry said.

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Many different strains of bird flu are present in China and some sporadically infect people, usually those working with poultry. There is no indication that H10N3 can spread easily in humans.

The man, a resident of the city of Zhenjiang, was hospitalized on April 28 and diagnosed with H10N3 on May 28, the health commission said. It did not give details on how the man was infected.

His condition is now stable and he is ready to be discharged. Investigation of his close contacts found no other cases, the NHC said. No other cases of human infection with H10N3 have been reported globally, it added.

H10N3 is low-pathogenic, which means it causes relatively less severe disease in poultry and is unlikely to cause a large-scale outbreak, the NHC added.

The World Health Organization (WHO), in a reply to Reuters in Geneva, said: “The source of the patient’s exposure to the H10N3 virus is not known at this time, and no other cases were found in emergency surveillance among the local population. At this time, there is no indication of human-to-human transmission.

“As long as avian influenza viruses circulate in poultry, sporadic infection of avian influenza in humans is not surprising, which is a vivid reminder that the threat of an influenza pandemic is persistent,” the WHO added.

The strain is “not a very common virus,” said Filip Claes, regional laboratory co-ordinator of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases at the regional office for Asia and the Pacific.

Only around 160 isolates of the virus were reported in the 40 years to 2018, mostly in wild birds or waterfowl in Asia and some limited parts of North America, and none had been detected in chickens so far, he added.

Analyzing the genetic data of the virus will be necessary to determine whether it resembles older viruses or if it is a novel mix of different viruses, Claes said.

There have been no significant numbers of human infections with bird flu since the H7N9 strain killed around 300 people during 2016-17.

— Reporting for Reuters by Hallie Gu and Dominique Patton; additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva.

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That study, by a team of Chinese scientists and published by the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), warned that a new swine flu virus, named G4, has become more infectious to humans and could become a potential “pandemic virus.”

However, China’s agriculture ministry said in a statement that the study has been interpreted by the media “in an exaggerated and nonfactual way.”

An analysis by the ministry concluded that sampling of the published study is too small to be representative, while the article lacks adequate evidence to show the G4 virus has become the dominant strain among pigs.

The ministry said it drew its conclusions after holding a seminar on the G4 virus’s impact on the hog industry and public health. Participants included Chinese veterinarians and anti-virus experts, as well as the leading authors of the PNAS study.

The participants concurred that the G4 virus is not new, the statement said. Furthermore, such a strain has been monitored continuously by the World Health Organization (WHO) and related agencies in China since 2011, the statement said, citing a senior WHO official.

In addition, the authors of the published study agreed that the G4 virus does not effectively replicate in the human body and cause disease, according to the statement.

The ministry’s statement was authored by Yang Hanchun, a swine viral disease scientist at China Agricultural University who also serves the role of expert on a ministry anti-epidemic committee.

— Reporting for Reuters by Samuel Shen, Hallie Gu and Ryan Woo.

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The declaration, seen by Reuters, may be an effort by China to reduce the additional testing it has carried out on imported foods over the last week and make exporters responsible for guaranteeing their products’ safety, one meat importer who had signed it said.

He declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The French pork industry association Inaporc also received the notice, an official said.

China’s General Administration of Customs did not immediately respond to a fax seeking comment.

The declaration says the exporter is willing to comply with Chinese laws and guidance from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization to ensure food imported into China is not contaminated with the virus that causes COVID-19.

“In the event that a new case/suspected case of COVID-19 is detected in a food enterprise, or if there is a risk of contamination of food products exported to China, we are willing to take all necessary measures to eliminate food safety risks and protect consumer health,” it adds.

Beijing began testing imported food for the coronavirus after an outbreak in a wholesale food market last week.

In Tianjin, the primary port for Beijing, authorities are testing all containers of meat, importers said.

More than 30,000 samples of meat, seafood, vegetables and fruit were tested between June 11-17. All tested negative for the coronavirus, customs said on Thursday.

“It’s very costly and time-consuming to test all products. They’re asking suppliers to sign this letter so they can go back to normal,” said the meat exporter.

How much weight the declaration will carry, however, is unclear.

“If any shipments are found to have COVID-19, they will be destroyed anyway, with or without the letter,” said another meat supplier who had not signed it.

— Reporting for Reuters by Dominique Patton; additional reporting by Emily Chow in Shanghai and Gus Trompiz in Paris.

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The provincial government and hog producer agency Alberta Pork on Monday announced the first of two cases reported Friday was in fact a “false positive.”

Specifically, Alberta Pork said Monday, the investigating lab in the third case “identified the virus in a sample, but pigs at the formerly-suspected affected premise have shown no signs of illness.”

False positives, the agency said, are “infrequent but can be expected occasionally in disease investigations, due to the sensitivity and concern for positive results.”

“Investigation into possible explanations around these results is underway,” the province said in a separate statement Monday.

Alberta Pork said it apologized for “any confusion or alarm” resulting from Friday’s notice.

As of now, Alberta Pork said, “we can confirm three outbreaks of PED in Alberta in 2019” so far. Those include the other case reported Friday as well as the cases confirmed Jan. 7 and Feb. 21.

The province and other stakeholders are “monitoring the situation to determine a source for all outbreaks, but none have been found yet,” the agency said.

Any possible connection between the three outbreaks “remains uncertain,” the agency added.

Neither the province nor Alberta Pork have yet said whether Friday’s confirmed case is geographically close to either of the first two.

The February case, however, is “far away” from the January case, Alberta Pork’s quality assurance and production manager Javier Bahamon said Feb. 22 via email.

Alberta’s hog herd, up until January, had managed to avoid any on-farm outbreaks of PED. Almost 250 other on-farm PED outbreaks have been confirmed in Canada since its arrival in early 2014, mostly on hog operations in southern Ontario and southeastern Manitoba.

The PED virus (PEDv) is a coronavirus which, once introduced in a herd, causes vomiting, watery diarrhea and dehydration in infected hogs. Mortality rates run up to 100 per cent in infected nursing-age piglets but are much lower in growing hogs, which generally present with milder diarrhea. There is no known human health risk or food safety risk associated with PED. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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A recent paper from University of Guelph scientists says a novel vaccine that protects cattle from a viral-driven respiratory disease may hold the secret to creating similar treatments for human diseases, ranging from gut infections to HIV and cancer.

Azud Kaushik, a professor with the university’s department of molecular and cellular biology, said the team was able to engineer antibodies, grafted with a microbial antigen, that improved immune response.

When the cattle are treated with the genetically manipulated antibody fragments, it triggers a response against bovine herpes virus. That virus causes a respiratory disease, affects cattle health, and hampers cattle trade.

“It’s a major problem in North America,” said Kaushik. An existing vaccine fails to protect cattle against a viral flare-up when the animals are stressed.

The Guelph team grafted an artificial antigent onto the cow antibody, and then immunized calves to see its effects. Kaushik said the team found a very high immune response compared to an unmanipulated antibody.

Kaushik says the finding proves the concept can work in the real world and can be transferred to human diseases.

“We could use this structure to make any kind of vaccine,” he said. “We could modify the structure to develop novel vaccines against cancer.”

The paper appeared recently in the journal Molecular Immunology.

Kaushik hopes to license the technique for drug companies to develop new therapies against various diseases.

This article first appeared on AGCanada.com.

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I’m really not a “germophobe.” I had the flu a couple of years ago and was bedridden for four days after not using any sick leave for several years. After that experience, I decided to take precautions to avoid having a recurrence of fever, body aches, coughing, chills and fatigue.

With a trip coming up involving air flight, I nearly sealed my office door with crime tape to prevent any coughers or snifflers from entering my office.

Having a bad cold when the airplane cabin is being pressurized feels like my head is being vacuum packaged.

When I went in for my recent annual checkup, I had my sleeve rolled up before my health-care provider even asked me about getting a flu shot.

Colds and flu are a little different, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although both are caused by viruses, the flu tends to have more severe symptoms, such as a fever. While having a stuffy nose is frustrating, colds usually do not become life-threatening cases of pneumonia.

Getting the flu can lead to serious complications, including pneumonia, which can result in hospitalization or even death, especially among older adults.

According to researchers, cold viruses can survive on indoor surfaces for up to seven days, with their ability to cause infection decreasing after 24 hours.

Some infectious cold viruses can survive on hands for up to one hour. Infectious flu viruses can survive on the hands for 15 minutes and on hard surfaces for 24 hours. Flu viruses also can survive as air droplets for several hours.

The CDC promotes three actions to fight the flu. The first action step is to get a flu shot. I can check that step off my list.

Can you?

The second action step is to avoid close contact with sick people. I was sufficiently antisocial to meet that requirement lately. In fact, if you are sick with flu-like symptoms, stay home for 24 hours after your fever is gone. Be sure to cover your cough with a tissue or cough into your elbow.

Washing your hands regularly is one of the best ways to prevent infection and keep your immune system healthy. You should scrub your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds. You can sing “Happy Birthday” twice to make sure you are scrubbing your hands long enough. Using soap and friction to wash our hands helps lift dirt, grease and disease-causing germs.

If you use alcohol-based hand sanitizers, be sure they contain at least 60 per cent alcohol and are used as directed on the package.

The third action step from the CDC is to take antivirals if your health-care provider prescribes them. Follow the directions of your health-care provider or pharmacist.

What about nutrition? Have you ever heard that you should take vitamin C or zinc to prevent a cold?

According to an article in the Harvard Health Letter, taking zinc to prevent and/or treat colds has produced inconsistent results in research. Taking vitamin C to prevent a cold had little, if any, effect.

Although no randomized trials have been conducted to assess the effects of increased fluid intake in adults during a cold, fluids are important. Fluids, particularly hot fluids, help keep mucus moist and loose and can unplug nasal passages. Also, if you have a fever, fluids can keep you from becoming dehydrated.

Soup is a common at-home remedy to treat colds because it is easy for the body to digest. Some evidence indicates that soup can help remove mucus from the body faster than a hot beverage. In addition, soup provides fluids and may contain a combination of vitamins, minerals and protein that can aid the immune system.

Inhaling steam from a teakettle or in a hot shower can help open nasal passages, too.

Keep your immune system functioning well this winter. Eat a healthful diet with plenty of colourful fruits and vegetables, lean protein, healthful fats, low-fat dairy and whole grains. Be active at least five days per week, aiming for 30 to 60 minutes of activity each day. Manage stress and get plenty of sleep. Drink in moderation, if at all, and limit your intake of fatty foods and avoid tobacco.

Visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for more information about colds and the flu.

Here’s a tasty recipe with plenty of naturally vitamin-rich, colourful vegetables to nourish your body.

Personalized Homemade Vegetable Soup (Slow Cooker Or Stovetop)

• 2 c. vegetable broth
• 1 c. water (can add more or less)
• 2 medium carrots, sliced
• 1 medium potato, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 c. fresh or frozen cut green beans
• 1 c. diced tomatoes (canned or fresh)
• 1 c. roasted turkey, chicken, pork or beef (if desired)

To personalize this recipe, add your vegetables of choice in the same amounts shown in the recipe. If you prefer more broth, simply add more vegetable broth.

Pour stock and water into slow cooker, add ingredients and let cook on medium for five to six hours or low for seven to eight hours (or until vegetables are tender). To cook on stovetop, add all ingredients to a pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for about 60 minutes (or until vegetables are tender).

Makes eight servings. Without added meat, each serving has 35 calories, 0 grams (g) fat, 1 g protein, 8 g carbohydrate, 2 g fibre and 180 milligrams sodium.

The post How to fight the flu appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

It and a couple of strains of rotavirus are the two main viruses we see in our scours vaccines. (It also causes a winter dysentery bloody diarrhea in mature cattle, especially housed dairy cattle in the winter.) What you also may not have known is this same virus can be involved in the bovine respiratory disease complex.

The respiratory syndrome is often masked by the other much more prominent viruses such as IBR and BRSV or the main bacterial causes of pneumonia that being Mannheimia Hemolytica, Pasteurella Multocida and finally Histophilus Somnus. Often it may be involved with the respiratory disease complex with these other components, but is generally less serious. There is no respiratory vaccine on the market that has the corona virus antigen in it, but in the future — as the vaccines become broader and broader spectrum — a company may put in the corona virus to bolster the immunity to more respiratory pathogens once again.

Respiratory disease is the No. 1 economic disease in feedlots across Canada so anything we can do to reduce cases is beneficial. Cattle have a lot less lung capacity than other species but the big rumen and digestive process require a lot more oxygen. So technically the lungs have very little reserve in them, and that leads to more issues with respiratory disease.

A few separate outbreaks of corona virus respiratory disease have occurred and you generally see some slight depression, but overall animals will still look bright. There may be increased nasal secretions and feed intake may go down significantly. In fact, it may be this feed decrease is the first thing that is experienced. One still has to treat the sick calves for secondary bacterial infection. It can also occur if there is suppression of the immune system because of vitamin or mineral deficiency, internal parasites or a concurrent disease. You may even have some cattle infected with corona and have the enteric form as well. You would then expect to have diarrhea accompany some of the other clinical signs in a small percentage of infected cattle.

So if a group of cattle seems to be sicker than in the past — in spite of vaccinating for pneumonia — have them checked out, as the corona virus may be the culprit.

Another bacterial cause of pneumonia presents itself a different way and may be an emerging disease in the United States — which means we should keep our eyes open in Canada because of all the trading of cattle and other livestock that goes on.

The bacterium is Bibersteinia trehalosi and is very closely related to M. Hemolytica that is the key bacteria involved in the whole bovine respiratory disease complex. It presents itself as sudden death and in the U.S. has involved Holstein cows primarily and is significant at causing pneumonia and blood infection (septicemia) in sheep. The pneumonia veterinarians see on a post-mortem is really indistinguishable from the M Hemolytica form and it is indistinguishable on routine lab submissions. So unless the lab does special testing it is hard to identify. It may be another emerging component to the whole respiratory disease complex.

U.S. veterinarians noticed this form of pneumonia was different because it was a quick killer of cows and was fairly unresponsive to antibiotics. Part of the reason was its acute nature — the antibiotic simply doesn’t have enough time to work. Also, we generally are not expecting full-grown cows to develop respiratory disease and so it catches us off guard. In some cases, this organism can be quite resistant to many different antibiotics when we culture it.

Even though now there are several good long-lasting macrolide antibiotics for treating groups of high-risk calves, this should not reduce our vigilance in watching for unusual respiratory disease. If the incidence of treatment or death loss is higher than expected or there have been sudden deaths, then have some of the animals autopsied by your veterinarian. Finding the root cause will definitely help them determine better treatment, biosecurity and preventive measures for your farm.

Cow-calf, feeders and feedlot operators have definitely reduced the incidence of pneumonia deaths in Canada over the last decade through a combination of using vaccines with broader coverage, using metaphylactic antibiotics, better treatment antimicrobials, and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Feed conversion is better with less chronics present. So if your response to vaccines seems poor; pulls are too high; or death rates are unacceptable, get the cattle checked and post-mortem any recently dead ones(especially sudden deaths). One of these emerging pathogens (especially B. trehalosi) could be present and you need to do a culture to find out.

Be aware of new advances in the early detection prevention and treatment of respiratory disease. Different vaccination combinations are always presenting themselves and there is always going to be continued research in this area of cattle medicine.

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In a study analyzing 239 tissue samples from women diagnosed with breast cancer, scientists found 59 per cent had been exposed to the bovine leukemia virus (BLV) compared to 29 per cent of tissue samples from women without.

While stressing that the results do not prove that BLV infection causes breast cancer, lead researcher Gertrude Buehring, a professor of virology in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, said the presence of BLV in humans could be a significant indicator of risk.

“As many as 37 per cent of breast cancer cases may be attributable to BLV exposure,” the paper published in the online journal PLOS ONE said.

“This odds ratio is higher than any of the frequently publicized risk factors for breast cancer, such as obesity, alcohol consumption and use of post-menopausal hormones,” said Buehring.

Bovine leukemia virus infects dairy and beef cattle’s blood cells and mammary tissue. The retrovirus is easily transmitted among cattle primarily through infected blood and milk, but causes disease in fewer than five per cent of infected animals.

A 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture survey of bulk milk tanks found that 100 per cent of dairy operations with large herds of 500 or more cows tested positive for BLV antibodies. Even dairy operations with small herds of fewer than 100 cows tested positive for BLV 83 per cent of the time.

The PLOS ONE paper noted that pasteurization renders the virus non-infectious, as does thorough cooking of beef. However, it said the virus, which is readily transmitted from cow to calf, may have become established in the human population before pasteurization became common in the 1920s and may still be entering the population through consumption of raw milk and undercooked beef.

It was believed until recently, based on studies done in the 1970s, that the BLV could not be transmitted to humans, but research published by Buehring last year overturned those results.

“The tests we have now are more sensitive, but it was still hard to overturn the established dogma that BLV was not transmissible to humans. As a result, there has been little incentive for the cattle industry to set up procedures to contain the spread of the virus,” she said.

There is precedence for viral origins of cancer. Hepatitis B virus is known to cause liver cancer, and the human papillomavirus can lead to cervical and anal cancers. Notably, vaccines have been developed for both those viruses and are routinely used to prevent the cancers associated with them.

Buehring emphasized that this study does not identify how the virus infected the breast tissue samples in their study. The virus could have come through the consumption of unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat, or it could have been transmitted by other humans.

As well, she said researchers must still confirm that infection with the virus happened before, not after, the breast cancer developed.

If BLV were substantiated as a risk factor for breast cancer, its detection in breast fluid cells or tissues might serve as a biomarker to identify women at higher risk for developing breast cancer.

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