In an effort to build yet another bridge between the worlds of human health and animal health, United States Animal Health Association (USAHA) leadership attended the recent Eighth Annual Conference on Vaccine Research sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) in Baltimore, Maryland.

USAHA President Rick Willer, President-elect Bret Marsh and member Glenn Plumb attended this year’s vaccine research conference as well as the scientific program planning committee meeting, and presented a well received poster depicting the brucellosis issue in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) and describing how USAHA is addressing the brucellosis vaccine research issue for bison and elk.

Given that more than two-thirds of the newly emerging and re-emerging diseases in people are zoonotic, the organizing committee of the conference, which is dedicated to comparative vaccinology and medicine, welcomed USAHA’s participation and agreed to collaborate on a special seminar devoted to vaccine issues related to zoonotic diseases at the Ninth Annual Conference on Vaccine Research in May 2006.  USAHA President Rick Willer has appointed Glenn Plumb to be USAHA’s liaison on the scientific program planning committee for the Ninth Annual Conference.  The conference organizing committee also committed to establishing a long-term relationship with USAHA.

“Linkages established during the Eighth Annual Conference will support USAHA’s plans to hold a working symposium in August 2005 to develop a brucellosis vaccine research road map,” Willer said, referring to USAHA’s initiative to find new vaccine solutions to the brucellosis problem in elk and bison in the GYA.

The solution to the GYA brucellosis issue remains elusive, in part, because current vaccines for livestock do not work well in those wild species.  “While vaccines are not the only solution to the brucellosis problem in the GYA, they are certainly an important part of the tools to accomplish the goal of elimination of Brucella abortus from the last remaining focus of the disease in the U.S.,” Willer commented.

Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that causes abortions and related reproductive problems in many species of mammals, including cattle, sheep, goats, swine, bison, elk, dogs and occasionally horses.  While no longer a major human health issue in the United States, in much of the world, brucellosis in people (known as undulant fever) presents a very important public health concern.

USAHA, the nation’s animal health forum for 109 years, is a science based, national organization of official state and federal animal health agencies, national allied industry organizations, universities, wildlife disease experts and other national organizations that acts to develop resolution to issues related to animal health and disease control, food safety, public health, homeland security and animal welfare based on science, new information and methods, public policy, risk/benefit analysis and the ability to develop consensus for changing laws, regulations, policies and programs.

Source: USAHA News Flash
June 7, 2005

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