Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a zoonotic viral disease that can affect a variety of species, including ruminants and camels, causing high mortality in young animals and/or abortions in adults. The RVF virus is endemic mainly in subSaharan Africa, but it has also been seen in North Africa, and may have become established in Egypt. There are concerns that this virus might be spreading, after outbrea...

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a zoonotic viral disease that can affect a variety of species, including ruminants and camels, causing high mortality in young animals and/or abortions in adults. The RVF virus is endemic mainly in subSaharan Africa, but it has also been seen in North Africa, and may have become established in Egypt. There are concerns that this virus might be spreading, after outbrea...

Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is a zoonotic bunyavirus that causes abortions in domesticated ruminants. Sheep breeds exotic to endemic areas are reportedly the most susceptible to RVFV infection. Within the scope of a risk assessment program of The Netherlands, we investigated the susceptibility of a native breed of gestating sheep to RVFV infection. Ewes were infected experimentally during th...

This paper considers whether transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs or prion diseases) could be spread by artificial insemination, embryo transfer and other more advanced reproductive technologies which are used for genetic improvement and also for purposes such as production of recombinant drugs for medical use. Although the technologies are most used in cattle, they are increasingly ...

The mammalian liver is a morphologically and functionally complex organ, made up of not only of the largely predominant parenchymal cells (hepatocytes) but also non-parenchymal cells. Although there are less non-parenchymal cells than hepatocytes, they nevertheless play an important role in regulating many hepatocyte functions, as well as in the immunology of the liver. We investigated the stru...

A number of prominent people have advocated eating less meat or becoming a vegetarian to reduce global warming, because cattle produce the greenhouse gas methane. This raises a number of questions including: what will happen to the grasslands that much of the world's cattle currently graze; how will alternate protein be produced, and what will the greenhouse consequences of that production be? ...

The inhabitants of the rumen microbial eco-system, a complex consortium of different microbial groups living in symbiotic relationship with the host, act synergistically for the bioconversion of lignocellulosic feeds into volatile fatty acids which serve as a source of energy for the animals. The constraints, imposed by the host and the feed consumed by the animal, under which these microbes ha...

Small ruminant lentiviruses (SRLV) are widespread amongst domesticated goats and sheep worldwide, but have not been clearly identified in wild small ruminants, where they might constitute an animal health risk through contamination from local domesticates. SRLV proviruses from three ibexes from the French Alps are described and sequences from their gag gene and long terminal repeats (LTRs) were...

We have examined the global population genetic structure of Haemonchus contortus. The genetic variability was studied using both amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and nad4 sequences of the mitochondrial genome. To examine the performance and information content of the two different marker systems, comparative assessment of population genetic diversity was undertaken in 19 isolates o...

Background Alpacas (Vicugna pacos), earlier named Lama pacos, belong to the family Camelidae of which there are 7 living species. Four are native to South America and of those four two are domestic species, the alpaca (Vicugna pacos) and the llama (Lama glama) and two are wild, the vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) and the guanaco (Lama guanicoe). These species are often referred to as the New World cam...