The use of sub-Tenon's anesthesia versus a low-dose neuromuscular blockade for canine cataract surgery: A comparative study of 224 eyes.

OBJECTIVE: Assess the utility of a Sub-Tenon's anesthesia (STA) protocol to provide suitable operating conditions for canine cataract surgery and compare it to an alternative low-dose neuromuscular blockade (LD-NMB) protocol used for canine cataract surgery. PROCEDURES: Clinical study of dog eyes undergoing cataract surgery with either an STA or LD-NMB protocol. While intraoperative vitreal expansion scores and intraoperative complications were collected prospectively, globe position, intraocular pressure, return of vision, and postoperative complications were collected retrospectively. Statistical testing was used to compare results between the STA and the LD-NMB groups for the data available. RESULTS: A total of 224 eyes from 126 dogs were assessed, with 133/224 (59.4%) eyes from 99/126 (78.6%) dogs receiving STA and 91/124 (40.6%) eyes from 72/126 (57.1%) dogs receiving LD-NMB. Forty-five of these dogs (45/126; 37.7%) received STA for one eye and LD-NMB for the other eye. There was no significant change in intraocular pressure measurements following STA administration. This was not measured for the LD-NMB group. The globe achieved a central position in 110/133 (82.7%) of eyes that received STA. This was not measured for the LD-NMB group. Intraoperative vitreal expansion scores were slightly higher in STA-treated eyes compared to LD-NMB-treated eyes. The intraoperative complication rate for STA-treated eyes was higher (73/133; 54.8%) compared to NMB-treated eyes (12/91; 13.2%). The most common intraoperative complication for STA was chemosis (64/133; 48.1%), the risk of which increased with an increase in the volume of local anesthetic injected. The post-operative complication rate was higher in STA-treated eyes (28/133; 21.1%) compared to NMB-treated eyes (16/91; 17.6%). Post-operative corneal ulceration was the most common postoperative complication in STA-treated eyes (6/133; 4.5%). CONCLUSION: The STA protocol described resulted in suitable operating conditions, but more intraoperative and postoperative complications compared to the LD-NMB protocol. Despite these complications, the STA protocol did not cause a significant deleterious impact on post-operative outcomes as defined in the present study.

Building Veterinarians beyond Veterinary School: Challenges and Opportunities for Continuing Professional Development in Veterinary Medicine.

Continuing professional development (CPD) is an important mechanism for veterinarians to acquire, maintain, and enhance their capability to perform competently in their chosen practice area over their career. Although most licensing bodies require veterinarians to complete a minimum number of CPD hours each registration cycle, there are known issues with verifying that these activities are having the desired effects of ensuring professional competence and improving outcomes for patients, owners, and veterinarians. In this review, we summarize the literature across different health care professions to highlight three key challenges for veterinary CPD programs. These are (a) defining what it means to be professionally competent across different career stages from graduation to retirement, (b) delivering CPD activities that are effective in promoting evidence-based medicine and behavioral change in practice, and (c) developing reliable and sustainable systems to formally assess the continued professional competence of veterinarians. A common theme across all challenges was the importance of interacting with colleagues as an opportunity to receive external feedback on their professional strengths and weaknesses and to develop stronger support networks for managing common stressors in clinical practice. There was also a recognized need to develop more transparent outlines of the available and acceptable options for managing different animal health concerns as a first step toward identifying new opportunities for the veterinary profession to elevate the level of care provided. Based on these findings, we propose a new framework for defining, delivering, and evaluating CPD that promotes stronger collaboration between veterinarians to improve professional and personal well-being.

Modelling the transmission dynamics of bovine digital dermatitis in New Zealand pastoral dairy production systems.

Bovine digital dermatitis (DD) is an important infectious cause of cattle lameness worldwide that has become increasingly prevalent in New Zealand pastoral dairy herds. In this study, a simplified DD scoring system after considering both M and Iowa DD scoring systems was applied to explore the transmission dynamics of DD in a typical spring-calving pastoral New Zealand dairy herd. The modified model only included three compartments: normal skin, early stage lesions and advanced lesions. Lesions regressing after treatment were excluded as DD lesions are rarely treated in New Zealand. Furthermore, sub-classes within each lesion class were not defined due to the lack of variability in DD lesion presentations within New Zealand. The model was validated based on longitudinal field data from three dairy herds in the Waikato region during one lactation season (2017-18). The model suggested that in infected dairy herds, although DD prevalence will tend to increase year-on-year it is likely to remain relatively low (< 18%) even after 10 years of within-herd transmission. It is likely that the low transmission rate during the late lactation (model assumption) results in more cases resolving than developing during this period and therefore results in the low prevalence of infectious cattle at the start of each subsequent lactation. Cattle with advanced lesions had a stronger influence on the establishment and maintenance of DD than cattle with early stage lesions highlighting the importance of targeting these animals for intervention. On-going monitoring of DD is highly recommended to assess the long-term progression of the disease in affected dairy herds.

Cross-sectional survey of anaesthesia and analgesia protocols used to perform routine canine and feline ovariohysterectomies.

OBJECTIVE: To collect baseline descriptive data on the anaesthesia and analgesia protocols used by New Zealand veterinarians in first-opinion practice when performing routine canine and feline ovariohysterectomies. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. ANIMALS: Not applicable. METHODS: An online survey was conducted asking respondents for: 1) preoperative patient assessment; 2) preanaesthetic medication and induction drugs used; 3) anaesthesia maintenance drug choices and monitoring equipment used; and 4) postoperative analgesia drug selections and monitoring for ovariohysterectomy performed in healthy adult dogs and cats. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 472 veterinarians, of whom 282 provided responses for canine ovariohysterectomy and 361 provided responses for feline ovariohysterectomy. Approximately 23% of canine ovariohysterectomies and 13% of feline ovariohysterectomies had preanaesthetic bloodwork performed. There were 74 unique premedication/induction drug combinations reported for canine ovariohysterectomies and 94 for feline ovariohysterectomies. The most commonly used drug combinations were acepromazine, morphine ± propofol and butorphanol, ketamine and medetomidine for canine and feline ovariohysterectomies respectively. Most animals were intubated, and anaesthesia was maintained with isoflurane in oxygen. Use of intravenous catheters, fluid administration, heat support, and monitoring equipment varied. There were 41 unique postoperative analgesia drug combinations reported for canine ovariohysterectomies and 20 for feline ovariohysterectomies. Canine ovariohysterectomies were most commonly administered injectable opioids on the day of surgery followed by 3 days of oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), whereas feline ovariohysterectomies were usually administered a single injection of an opioid or NSAID or both on the day of surgery. Most animals were seen within 7-10 days for re-examination and/or suture removal. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Veterinarians use a wide range of anaesthesia and analgesia protocols for routine ovariohysterectomies. Further research is needed comparing the safety and efficacy of commonly used protocols to determine whether there are opportunities to improve the level of patient welfare.

Experience of Practicing Veterinarians with Supervising Final-Year Students and New Graduates in Performing Desexing Surgeries.

With increasing pressure on university teaching hospital caseloads, veterinary students are increasingly being taught basic desexing skills during their final-year extramural rotations or as new graduates in practice. A cross-sectional survey of New Zealand veterinarians was conducted to elicit information about their experiences supervising these cohorts. Of the 162 respondents who had supervised at least one final-year veterinary student, only 95 (58.6%) allowed students to perform desexing surgeries and the most common procedures they allowed students to perform were cat neuters (96%) followed by cat spays (64%), dog neuters (63%), and dog spays (24%). The time needed to supervise students, the liability of students operating on client-owned animals, and students' poor basic instrument, tissue, and suture handling skills were cited as major deterrents. Breaks in sterility and dropped pedicles were the most frequently reported complications, although these still occurred only occasionally or rarely. Of the 101 respondents who had supervised at least one new graduate, all but one provided surgical mentoring. It took an average of 3.3 dog neuters, 8 dog spays, 2.4 cat neuters, and 4.7 cat spays before respondents were comfortable letting new graduates perform surgery unassisted. Respondents generally expected new graduates to perform dog spays in under 60 minutes, cats spays and dog neuters in under 30 minutes, and cat neuters in under 10 minutes. Although most respondents agreed that students needed more hands-on experience with live animal surgery, the main clinical skills deficiencies identified were ones that could easily be trained and practiced on simulated models.

Guidelines for Implementing a Low-Cost Volunteer Desexing Skills Training Program for Veterinary and Veterinary Technology Students.

Although desexing surgeries are considered a core clinical skill for small animal veterinary practice, it can be challenging for veterinary schools to provide students with adequate training opportunities in the traditional curriculum. At the Massey University School of Veterinary Science, we recently established an innovative extracurricular volunteer program designed to have students teaching other students how to perform different elements of desexing procedures as they progress through their degree. This program includes administrative and assistant roles for first-year students (responsible for client communication, patient restraint, and medical record keeping), physical exam and recovery roles for second-year students (responsible for assessing patient fitness for surgery, drawing up anesthetic drugs, and monitoring patients in recovery), anesthesia and neuter surgeon roles for third-year students (responsible for inducing, preparing, and monitoring spay patients and performing cat neuter surgeries), and spay surgeon roles for fourth- and fifth-year students (responsible for performing cat spay surgeries, discharging patients, and following up with clients to monitor recovery). This program has been successful in improving student confidence and competence while also providing a valuable low-cost desexing service to the community. In this article, we discuss the practical considerations and processes involved in implementing this program, including mapping the existing surgical curriculum, recruiting patients, setting up the surgical facilities, purchasing equipment and supplies, establishing standard operating procedures, developing training materials, maintaining clinic records, and monitoring program outcomes. These resources can serve as guidelines for other veterinary schools looking to expand desexing surgery training opportunities for students.

Assessing biases in phylodynamic inferences in the presence of super-spreaders.

Phylodynamic analyses using pathogen genetic data have become popular for making epidemiological inferences. However, many methods assume that the underlying host population follows homogenous mixing patterns. Nevertheless, in real disease outbreaks, a small number of individuals infect a disproportionately large number of others (super-spreaders). Our objective was to quantify the degree of bias in estimating the epidemic starting date in the presence of super-spreaders using different sample selection strategies. We simulated 100 epidemics of a hypothetical pathogen (fast evolving foot and mouth disease virus-like) over a real livestock movement network allowing the genetic mutations in pathogen sequence. Genetic sequences were sampled serially over the epidemic, which were then used to estimate the epidemic starting date using Extended Bayesian Coalescent Skyline plot (EBSP) and Birth-death skyline plot (BDSKY) models. Our results showed that the degree of bias varies over different epidemic situations, with substantial overestimations on the epidemic duration occurring in some occasions. While the accuracy and precision of BDSKY were deteriorated when a super-spreader generated a larger proportion of secondary cases, those of EBSP were deteriorated when epidemics were shorter. The accuracies of the inference were similar irrespective of whether the analysis used all sampled sequences or only a subset of them, although the former required substantially longer computational times. When phylodynamic analyses need to be performed under a time constraint to inform policy makers, we suggest multiple phylodynamics models to be used simultaneously for a subset of data to ascertain the robustness of inferences.

Estimation of the within-herd transmission rates of bovine viral diarrhoea virus in extensively grazed beef cattle herds.

Many research groups have developed mathematical models to simulate the dynamics of BVDV infections in cattle herds. However, most models use estimates for within-herd BVDV transmission rates that are either based on expert opinion or adapted from other dairy herd simulation models presented in the literature. There is currently little information on the transmission rates for BVDV in extensively grazed beef herds partly due to the logistical challenges in obtaining longitudinal data of individual animal's seroconversion, and it may not be appropriate to apply the same transmission rates from intensive dairy herds given the significant differences in herd demographics and management. To address this knowledge gap, we measured BVDV antibody levels in 15 replacement heifers in each of 75 New Zealand beef breeding farms after their first calving and again at pregnancy scanning or weaning to check for seroconversion. Among these, data from 9 farms were used to infer the within-herd BVDV transmission rate with an approximate Bayesian computation method. The most probable within-herd BVDV transmission rate was estimated as 0.11 per persistently infected (PI) animal per day with a 95% highest posterior density interval between 0.03 and 0.34. This suggests that BVDV transmission in extensively grazed beef herds is generally slower than in dairy herds where the transmission rate has been estimated at 0.50 per PI animal per day and therefore may not be sufficient to ensure that all susceptible breeding females gain adequate immunity to the virus before the risk period of early pregnancy for generating new PI calves.

Bayesian analysis of herd-level risk factors for bovine digital dermatitis in New Zealand dairy herds.

BACKGROUND: Bovine digital dermatitis (BDD) is considered the most important infectious cause of lameness in dairy cattle worldwide, but has only recently been observed in New Zealand. Although many studies have investigated the risk factors for BDD in confined dairy systems, information on risk factors in pasture-based system is limited. Therefore a cross-sectional study including 59,849 animals from 127 dairy herds in four regions of New Zealand was conducted to identify the herd-level factors associated with the probability of a herd being BDD-lesion positive and with within-herd BDD prevalence. RESULTS: Purchasing heifers was associated with increased odds of a herd being BDD-lesion positive (odds ratio [OR]: 2.33, 95% probability interval [PI]: 1.26-4.42) and a cow being BDD affected (OR: 3.76, 95%PI: 1.73-8.38), respectively. Higher odds of a herd being BDD-lesion positive (OR: 2.06, 95%PI: 1.17-3.62) and a cow being BDD affected (OR: 2.87, 95%PI: 1.43-5.94) were also seen in herds where heifers co-grazed with cattle from other properties. In addition, using outside staff to treat lameness was associated with higher odds of a cow being BDD affected (OR: 2.18, 95%PI: 0.96-4.98). CONCLUSION: This study highlighted that movements of heifers are significantly associated with the spread of BDD within and between dairy herds in New Zealand. To minimise the risk of disease introductions in herds where moving heifers cannot be avoided, it is best to purchase heifers only from herds where BDD-freedom has been confirmed and, if heifers have to graze-off a farm, they should be reared as a single biosecure management group, especially since animals may be BDD-infected without having clinically obvious lesions.

Superficial keratectomy as a treatment for non-healing corneal ulceration associated with primary corneal endothelial degeneration.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze a study population of dogs with primary corneal endothelial degeneration (PCED) for information on the patterns of disease and to report the efficacy of superficial keratectomy (SK) for resolution of non-healing corneal ulcers associated with PCED. ANIMALS STUDIED: Primary corneal endothelial degeneration was diagnosed in 238 dogs between 1998 and 2017. Corneal ulceration associated with PCED was present in 89 dogs (109 eyes), of which 47 eyes were treated with SK. PROCEDURES: A retrospective assessment of medical records was performed to determine the signalment patterns of PCED, and the success rate of the SK procedure for resolving PCED-associated corneal ulceration. Descriptive statistics were reported on the signalment of PCED cases, with odd ratios and confidence intervals calculated to detect breed predispositions. RESULTS: Primary corneal endothelial degeneration was diagnosed in 238 dogs, 40.8% were female and 59.2% were male, with a mean age at diagnosis of 11.4 years. Dachshunds, Dalmatians, English Springer Spaniels, Welsh Springer Spaniels, Chihuahuas, Cocker Spaniels, and Golden Retrievers were significantly over-represented. All PCED-affected Dalmatians developed associated corneal ulceration. Follow-up information was available for 41/47 eyes treated with SK. At the first reassessment, 87.8% were healed which increased to 97.6% with subsequent monitoring. Four eyes (9.8%) had late corneal ulcer occurrence following SK, at a median time following SK of 182 weeks post-surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Superficial keratectomy was an effective option for resolving painful non-healing corneal ulcers associated with PCED. Dalmatians may be at increased risk of developing PCED-associated corneal ulceration.

Not all cows are epidemiologically equal: quantifying the risks of bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) transmission through cattle movements.

Many economically important cattle diseases spread between herds through livestock movements. Traditionally, most transmission models have assumed that all purchased cattle carry the same risk of generating outbreaks in the destination herd. Using data on bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) in Scotland as a case example, this study provides empirical and theoretical evidence that the risk of disease transmission varies substantially based on the animal and herd demographic characteristics at the time of purchase. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that purchasing pregnant heifers and open cows sold with a calf at foot were associated with an increased risk of beef herds being seropositive for BVDV. Based on the results from a dynamic within-herd simulation model, these findings may be partly explained by the age-related probability of animals being persistently infected with BVDV as well as the herd demographic structure at the time of animal introductions. There was also evidence that an epidemiologically important network statistic, "betweenness centrality" (a measure frequently associated with the potential for herds to acquire and transmit disease), was significantly higher for herds that supplied these particular types of replacement beef cattle. The trends for dairy herds were not as clear, although there was some evidence that open heifers and open lactating cows were associated with an increased risk of BVDV. Overall, these findings have important implications for developing simulation models that more accurately reflect the industry-level transmission dynamics of infectious cattle diseases.

Risk factors for bovine tuberculosis in low incidence regions related to the movements of cattle.

BACKGROUND: Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) remains difficult to eradicate from low incidence regions partly due to the imperfect sensitivity and specificity of routine intradermal tuberculin testing. Herds with unconfirmed reactors that are incorrectly classified as bTB-negative may be at risk of spreading disease, while those that are incorrectly classified as bTB-positive may be subject to costly disease eradication measures. This analysis used data from Scotland in the period leading to Officially Tuberculosis Free recognition (1) to investigate the risks associated with the movements of cattle from herds with different bTB risk classifications and (2) to identify herd demographic characteristics that may aid in the interpretation of tuberculin testing results. RESULTS: From 2002 to 2009, for every herd with confirmed bTB positive cattle identified through routine herd testing, there was an average of 2.8 herds with at least one unconfirmed positive reactor and 18.9 herds with unconfirmed inconclusive reactors. Approximately 75% of confirmed bTB positive herds were detected through cattle with no known movements outside Scotland. At the animal level, cattle that were purchased from Scottish herds with unconfirmed positive reactors and a recent history importing cattle from endemic bTB regions were significantly more likely to react positively on routine intradermal tuberculin tests, while cattle purchased from Scottish herds with unconfirmed inconclusive reactors were significantly more likely to react inconclusively. Case-case comparisons revealed few demographic differences between herds with confirmed positive, unconfirmed positive, and unconfirmed inconclusive reactors, which highlights the difficulty in determining the true disease status of herds with unconfirmed tuberculin reactors. Overall, the risk of identifying reactors through routine surveillance decreased significantly over time, which may be partly attributable to changes in movement testing regulations and the volume of cattle imported from endemic regions. CONCLUSIONS: Although the most likely source of bTB infections in Scotland was cattle previously imported from endemic regions, we found indirect evidence of transmission within Scottish cattle farms and cannot rule out the possibility of low level transmission between farms. Further investigation is needed to determine whether targeting herds with unconfirmed reactors and a history of importing cattle from high risk regions would benefit control efforts.

Companion Animal Fostering as Health Promotion: A Literature Review.

There is growing interest in the health-promoting potential of human-companion animal relationships from a broad public health perspective while acknowledging barriers to ownership, particularly for older adults. Companion animal fostering is an alternative to pet ownership that aligns with the Ottawa Charter health promotion principle that caring for others in everyday settings promotes health. This narrative review of the literature on companion animal fostering draws on Te Whare Tapa Wha (the four-sided house), an indigenous model of health that is influential in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the Ottawa Charter. We found that companion animal fostering can be considered health-promoting for human and non-human animals, using a broad and multidimensional understanding of health. As well as improving the long-term outcomes for homeless animals, companion animal fostering has the potential to promote the health of the individuals, families, and communities who provide foster homes. Our review highlights the importance of health promoters considering the reciprocal relationship between human and animal health. Future research should explore different aspects of human and non-human health, perspectives of different types of fosterers in different settings and communities, barriers to fostering, and methods that explore the role of caring for a wider range of companion animals in creating and sustaining wellbeing.

A systematic review of social research data collection methods used to investigate voluntary animal disease reporting behaviour.

Voluntary detection of emerging disease outbreaks is considered essential for limiting their potential impacts on livestock industries. However, many of the strategies employed by animal health authorities to capture data on potential emerging disease threats rely on farmers and veterinarians identifying situations of concern and then voluntarily taking appropriate actions to notify animal health authorities. To improve the performance of these systems, it is important to understand the range of socio-cultural factors influencing the willingness of individuals to engage with disease reporting such as trust in government, perceived economic impacts, social stigma and perceptions of 'good farming'. The objectives of this systematic review were to assess how different social research methodologies have been employed to understand the role these socio-cultural dimensions play in voluntary disease reporting and to discuss limitations to address in future research. The review uncovered 39 relevant publications that employed a range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies including surveys, interviews, focus groups, scenarios, observations, mixed-methods, interventions and secondary data analysis. While these studies provided valuable insights, one significant challenge remains eliciting accurate statements of behaviour and intentions rather than those that reflect desirable social norms. There is scope to develop methodological innovations to study the decision to report animal disease to help overcome the gap between what people say they do and their observable behaviour. A notable absence is studies exploring specific interventions designed to encourage disease reporting. Greater clarity in specifying the disease contexts, behavioural mechanisms and outcomes and the relationships between them would provide a more theoretically informed and policy relevant understanding of how disease reporting works, for which farmers, and in which disease contexts.

Factors influencing the performance of voluntary farmer disease reporting in passive surveillance systems: A scoping review.

The impacts of exotic disease incursions on livestock industries can be mitigated by having robust surveillance systems in place that decrease the time between disease introduction and detection. An important component of this is having farmers routinely observe their animals for indications of clinical disease, recognise the existence of problems, and then decide to notify their veterinarian or animal health authorities. However, as highlighted by this literature review, farmers are believed to be underreporting clinical events due to factors such as (1) uncertainty around the clinical signs and situations that warrant reporting, (2) fear over the social and economic consequences from both positive and false positive reports, (3) negative beliefs regarding the efficacy and outcomes of response measures, (4) mistrust and dissatisfaction with animal health authorities, (5) absence of sufficiently attractive financial and non-financial incentives for submitting reports, and (6) poor awareness of the procedures involved with the submission, processing, and response to reports. There have been few formal studies evaluating the efficacy of different approaches to increasing farmer engagement with disease reporting. However, there is a recognised need for any proposed solutions to account for farmer knowledge and experience with assessing their own farm situation as well as the different identities, motivations, and beliefs that farmers have about their role in animal health surveillance systems. Empowering farmers to take a more active role in developing these solutions is likely to become even more important as animal health authorities increasingly look to establish public-private partnerships for biosecurity governance.

Challenges and opportunities for using national animal datasets to support foot-and-mouth disease control.

National level databases of animal numbers, locations and movements provide the essential foundations for disease preparedness, outbreak investigations and control activities. These activities are particularly important for managing and mitigating the risks of high-impact transboundary animal disease outbreaks such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), which can significantly affect international trade access and domestic food security. In countries where livestock production systems are heavily subsidized by the government, producers are often required to provide detailed animal movement and demographic data as a condition of business. In the remaining countries, it can be difficult to maintain these types of databases and impossible to estimate the extent of missing or inaccurate information due to the absence of gold standard datasets for comparison. Consequently, competent authorities are often required to make decisions about disease preparedness and control based on available data, which may result in suboptimal outcomes for their livestock industries. It is important to understand the limitations of poor data quality as well as the range of methods that have been developed to compensate in both disease-free and endemic situations. Using FMD as a case example, this review first discusses the different activities that competent authorities use farm-level animal population data for to support (1) preparedness activities in disease-free countries, (2) response activities during an acute outbreak in a disease-free country, and (3) eradication and control activities in an endemic country. We then discuss (4) data requirements needed to support epidemiological investigations, surveillance, and disease spread modelling both in disease-free and endemic countries.

Using multiple data sources to explore disease transmission risk between commercial poultry, backyard poultry, and wild birds in New Zealand.

The movements of backyard poultry and wild bird populations are known to pose a disease risk to the commercial poultry industry. However, it is often difficult to estimate this risk due to the lack of accurate data on the numbers, locations, and movement patterns of these populations. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the use of three different data sources when investigating disease transmission risk between poultry populations in New Zealand including (1) cross-sectional survey data looking at the movement of goods and services within the commercial poultry industry, (2) backyard poultry sales data from the online auction site TradeMe®, and (3) citizen science data from the wild bird monitoring project eBird. The cross-sectional survey data and backyard poultry sales data were transformed into network graphs showing the connectivity of commercial and backyard poultry producers across different geographical regions. The backyard poultry network was also used to parameterise a Susceptible-Infectious (SI) simulation model to explore the behaviour of potential disease outbreaks. The citizen science data was used to create an additional map showing the spatial distribution of wild bird observations across New Zealand. To explore the potential for diseases to spread between each population, maps were combined into bivariate choropleth maps showing the overlap between movements within the commercial poultry industry, backyard poultry trades and, wild bird observations. Network analysis revealed that the commercial poultry network was highly connected with geographical clustering around the urban centres of Auckland, New Plymouth and Christchurch. The backyard poultry network was also a highly active trade network and displayed similar geographic clustering to the commercial network. In the disease simulation models, the high connectivity resulted in all suburbs becoming infected in 96.4 % of the SI simulations. Analysis of the eBird data included reports of over 80 species; the majority of which were identified as coastal seabirds or wading birds that showed little overlap with either backyard or commercial poultry. Overall, our study findings highlight how the spatial patterns of trading activity within the commercial poultry industry, alongside the movement of backyard poultry and wild birds, have the potential to contribute significantly to the spread of diseases between these populations. However, it is clear that in order to fully understand this risk landscape, further data integration is needed; including the use of additional datasets that have further information on critical variables such as environmental factors.

Assessing the perceptions and practices of peri-urban dairy farmers regarding bovine mastitis management in North-Western Nigeria.

Peri-urban dairy farming is an emerging industry in sub-Saharan Africa that risks being undermined by diseases like bovine mastitis (BM) if farmers do not implement appropriate management programmes. However, little is currently known about farmer perceptions and practices towards BM due to challenges with accessing these herds for research. In this study, 49 intensive and 53 extensive peri-urban dairy farmers having ≥10 milking cows in Kaduna and Zaria metropolises, North-Western Nigeria were recruited through snowball sampling and on-farm interviews were conducted to collect information on herd demographics, milking procedures, and mastitis management. Descriptive statistics were provided for all study variables and statistical comparisons were made between intensive and extensive herds. The mean herd size was 33 milking cows (range: 11-62). A greater proportion of extensive herds contained only indigenous breeds of cattle (36/53; 68 %) compared with intensive herds (6/49; 12 %). Hand milking was the most common milking method across both herd types (93/102; 92 %). Intensive herds had better hand washing and udder cleaning practices, but there was no statistical difference between management systems with regards to floor, udder, and tail cleanliness. Only a small number of farms performed on-farm diagnosis of BM via strip cup test (4/102; 4%) or rapid mastitis test (3/102; 3%). Treatment of clinical mastitis was typically by intramuscular antibiotic injection (71/102; 70 %) or topically applied herbal preparations (14/102; 14 %). Dry cow intramammary therapy was only used by 6/46 intensive farms (13 %) and 1/53 extensive farms (2%). Most extensive herds (40/53; 76 %) reported milking cows with clinical mastitis after apparently healthy cows, however this practice was less common among intensive herds (5/49; 10 %). Extensive herds were less likely to request veterinary assistance for mastitis than intensive herds (17/53; 32 % versus 28/49; 57 %) and had higher perceived costs for treating BM cases. Intensive farmers reportedly received higher prices for milk than extensive farmers and perceived that BM was causing significantly more production losses in their herds. Only a small number of farmers (20/102; 20 %) kept mastitis treatment records for their herds. Overall, the study findings indicate that peri-urban dairy farmers may be lacking in awareness of BM impacts and access to basic resources to implement good practices such as hand washing between milking cows and antibiotic intramammary infusions.

Corrigendum: Evidence in Practice - a Pilot Study Leveraging Companion Animal and Equine Health Data From Primary Care Veterinary Clinics in New Zealand.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2016.00116.].

The Genetic Relatedness and Antimicrobial Resistance Patterns of Mastitis-Causing Staphylococcus aureus Strains Isolated from New Zealand Dairy Cattle.

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the leading causes of bovine mastitis worldwide and is a common indication for use of antimicrobials on dairy farms. This study aims to investigate the association between on-farm antimicrobial usage and the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles of mastitis-causing S. aureus. Whole-genome sequencing was performed on 57 S. aureus isolates derived from cows with either clinical or subclinical mastitis from 17 dairy herds in New Zealand. The genetic relatedness between isolates was examined using the core single nucleotide polymorphism alignment whilst AMR and virulence genes were identified in-silico. The association between gene presence-absence and sequence type (ST), antimicrobial susceptibility and dry cow therapy treatment was investigated using Scoary. Altogether, eight STs were identified with 61.4% (35/57) belonging to ST-1. Furthermore, 14 AMR-associated genes and 76 virulence-associated genes were identified, with little genetic diversity between isolates belonging to the same ST. Several genes including merR1 which is thought to play a role in ciprofloxacin-resistance were found to be significantly overrepresented in isolates sampled from herds using ampicillin/cloxacillin dry cow therapy. Overall, the presence of resistance genes remains low and current antimicrobial usage patterns do not appear to be driving AMR in S. aureus associated with bovine mastitis.