Serological and molecular identification of Leptospira spp. in swine and stray dogs from Malaysia.

Leptospirosis is endemic in Malaysia with Leptospira species extensively isolated from domestic and wild animals. Rats were found to be the principal maintenance hosts followed by cattle, pigs, and dogs. The objectives of this study were to isolate and identify Leptospira serovars circulating among swine from three different farms and also from stray dogs and cats from Klang valley, Selangor, Malaysia. Urine and kidney samples collected from 150 stray dogs, 50 cats and 81 swine were inoculated into semi-solid Ellinghausen McCullough Johnson and Harris (EMJH) media supplemented with additional 5-Fluorouracil. Dark field microscopy revealed only one positive culture of Leptospira from dog and swine samples, but all cat samples were negative. The PCR technique using published primers detected 11 positives in urine samples of dogs and 5 positives from swine. The microscopic agglutination test (MAT) confirmed the presence of two serovars in both dog and swine populations namely, L. interrogans serovar Canicola and L. interrogans serovar Pomona (MAT > 100), with Not I-PFGE analyses separating these two serovars into distinct profiles. Despite the low prevalence in stray dogs, the latter may play an important role in the contamination of the environment. Swine can also pose a potential risk of infection to humans and other domestic animals, especially those living close to swine farms. Thus improving hygiene and eradication of rodents in swine farms are likely to reduce the risk of infection.

Assessment of a new strategy, based on Aedes aegypti (L.) pupal productivity, for the surveillance and control of dengue transmission in Thailand.

In the countries where the disease is endemic, control of dengue is mainly based on the elimination or treatment of the water-filled containers where the main vector, Aedes aegypti, breeds, in interventions usually reliant on community participation. Although such control activities must be continuous, since vector eradication appears impossible, it should be possible to reduce the incidence of dengue significantly, in a cost-effective manner, by targeting only those types of containers in which large numbers of Ae. aegypti are produced. This strategy is now recommended by the World Health Organization, although it depends on the most productive types of container being carefully identified, in each endemic region. In Thailand, exhaustive surveys of 3125 wet containers in 240 houses in either an urban area (100-120 houses) or a rural area (120 houses) were conducted during a rainy and a dry season in 2004-2005. Indices based on the numbers of Ae. aegypti pupae observed were found to correlate with the 'classical' entomological indices that are based on all of the immature stages of the vector. Overall, 2.3 and 0.8 Ae. aegypti pupae were observed per person in the rural and urban areas, respectively. Although adult female Ae. aegypti laid eggs in all 10 types of wet container that were identified, large water-storage containers produced the majority of the pupae, especially at the end of the dry season (when such containers accounted for 90% of the pupae detected in the rural area and 60% of those in the urban area). Since these containers are large, easy to reach and account for, <50% of all wet containers, it should be relatively easy and quick to treat them with larvicide or to cover them. If even such targeted treatment is to be sustainable, however, it will have to be integrated, as one of several activities in which the at-risk communities are encouraged to participate.

Sizing up human health through remote sensing: uses and misuses.

Following the launch of new satellites, remote sensing (RS) has been increasingly implicated in human health research for thirty years, providing a growing availability of images with higher resolution and spectral ranges. However, the scope of applications, beyond theoretical large potentialities, appears limited both by their technical nature and the models developed. An exhaustive review of RS applications in human health highlights the real implication thus far regarding the diversity and range of health issues, remotely sensed data, processes and interpretations. The place of RS is far under its expected potential, revealing fundamental barriers in its implementation for health applications. The selection of images is done by practical considerations as trivial as price and availability, which are often not relevant to addressing health questions requiring suitable resolutions and spatio-temporal range. The relationships of environmental variables from RS, geospatial data from other sources for health investigations are poorly addressed and usually simplified. A discussion covering the potential of RS for human health is developed here to assist health scientists deal with spatial and temporal dynamics of health, by finding the most relevant data and analysis procedures.

[Normal mourning and pathological mourning]. / Deuil normal et deuil pathologique.

The mourning's function and the usual phases of this process are described. Complicated and pathological kinds of mournings are analysed, as well as their inducing circumstances. Adequate behaviours about the therapeutic relation are discussed.

[By way of introduction: where are we with schizophrenia today?]. / En guise d'introduction: où en est-on avec la schizophrénie aujourd'hui?

We are still far from a global understanding of the schizophrenic processes. A quick overall view of the concept modifications is to be considered simultaneously with the evolution of the psychiatrical institutions and the psychiatrical new knowledges. Will the schizophrenical vulnerability concept help us? Nobody knows. A comprehension of the pathological process is due to the fact that we know little about the psychical functioning prior to the affection development. Nothing tells us it is so "normal". The act that this process appears during the adolescence when new desires and projects emerge makes wonder if the processes elaborated during the latency period could have prepared the subject to this reorganization of his personality.

[Theoretical considerations on psychological symptoms in a crisis situation. Psychotherapeutic consequences]. / Considérations théoriques sur les mouvements psychiques dans les situations de crise. Conséquences psychothérapeutiques.

The crisis comes from the breakdown of the usual frame in which one lives. This frame insures to the patient a feeling of continuity as well as his intra-psychic security. This crisis also creates an intra-psychic disturbance which appears under the form of multiple symptoms that are often hiding the internal conflicts. The psychotherapist's aim in a crisis situation is to give a meaning to the patient's crisis and to offer him by the relation and the new frame generated by this relation, a transitional field in which the subject will be able to solve his conflicts and work out new anaclisis.