BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Deterioration of kidney function impairs testosterone production, with hypogonadism being common in men with chronic kidney disease (CKD). In nonrenal populations, testosterone is suggested to participate in the atherosclerotic process. In male dialysis patients, we showed that low testosterone increases the risk of mortality. We here studied plausible links among test...

AIM Disease outbreaks increase the cost of animal production; reduce milk and beef yield, cattle sales, farmers' incomes, and enterprise profitability. The study assessed the economic effects of foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks along the cattle marketing chain in selected study districts in Uganda. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study combined qualitative and quantitative study designs. Resp...

Spain has been a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free country since 1986. However, the FMD epidemics that recently affected several European Union (EU) member countries demonstrated that the continent is still at high risk for FMD virus (FMDV) introduction, and that the potential consequences of those epidemics are socially and financially devastating. This paper presents a quantitative assessment...

Between 1870 and 1929, nine separate outbreaks of foot and mouth disease (FMD) occurred in the United States of America (USA); additional outbreaks in North America include one in Mexico (1947) and two in Canada (1870 and 1952). In 1930, the United States Congress enacted a law prohibiting importation of live ruminants or swine or fresh meat from these species into the USA from countries affect...

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is endemic in African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) in the Kruger National Park (KNP) and surrounding game parks in South Africa. The last outbreak of the disease in domestic stock outside the FMD control zone occurred in 1957. Due to the success in containing the disease, the country was accorded zone freedom from FMD without vaccination by the Office International des...

Newcastle disease (ND) is one of the most serious illnesses of chickens. Live vaccines are widely used to prevent chicken from the disease all over the world. To access the effective and potentiate ND vaccine, a homogenous subpopulation from LaSota strain was selected following cultivation of the virus on primary chicken embryofibroblast (CEF) cells. Pathogenicity indices and molecular characte...

This paper compares strains of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) serotype SAT (South African Territories) 2 viruses isolated from Zimbabwe and other African countries using monoclonal antibodies (MAb). A sandwich-ELISA was used to examine the relative binding of anti-SAT 2 MAb to the various viruses. The MAb-binding profiles of viruses isolated from field samples were compared using hierarchical clu...

Foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in non-endemic countries can lead to large economic costs and livestock losses but the use of vaccination has been contentious, partly due to uncertainty about emergency FMD vaccination. Value of information methods can be applied to disease outbreak problems such as FMD in order to investigate the performance improvement from resolving uncertainties. Here we ca...

An immunodiffusion test using foot and mouth disease (FMD) virus infection-associated (VIA) antigen was used to detect precipitating antibodies in serum samples collected from non-vaccinated indigenous ruminants raised in different regions of Saudi Arabia. Of 5,985 sheep sera, 1,371 goat sera, 1,052 cattle sera and 694 serum samples from unspecified species of ruminants, precipitating activity ...

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has a major economic impact throughout the world and is a considerable threat to food security. Current FMD virus (FMDV) vaccines are made from chemically inactivated virus and need to contain intact viral capsids to maximize efficacy. FMDV exists as seven serotypes, each made up by a number of constantly evolving subtypes. A lack of immunological cross-reactivity b...