Highlights

Pigs react to swine flu like humans. This makes them usefuel in experiments which will find out how the virus attacks the respiratory tract in humans.

Flavobacteria cause huge losses in fish farming worldwide. Researchers are now surveying the variation found amongst these bacteria to better control the disease.

New findings on the interaction between an influenza-related virus and the host provide a significant contribution to understanding disease mechanisms behind the serious fish disease Infectious salmon anemia (ISA).

In an experiment where Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia Virus (VHSV) was transmitted to Norwegian herring, almost half of the infected herring died. Although these results cannot be transferred directly into nature, they suggest that the virus may have an impact on mortality rates in Norwegian herring stocks.

Transmission of infection from neighbouring fish farms is the main way that the viral disease Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) spreads during epidemics.

Measuring immune responses with the help of a so-called interferon gamma test can help to diagnose paratuberculosis in goats. However, infection in goats was discovered later than expected when this test was used and a positive test result can be inhibited by other immune responses in the animals, reveals a PhD project carried out at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute.

Doctoral research carried out by Mona Gjessing shows that pathological changes in cod differ from those found in diseased salmon, and cod that appear clinically healthy can nevertheless be affected by extensive changes due to disease. The results of this research will improve diagnostic accuracy and indirectly help to prevent disease in farmed cod.

The Polar bear that killed a 17 year-old British boy and injured four others in Svalbard, Norway suffered from severe tooth pain.

The overall objective in this project is to provide knowledge that will lead to reduced losses caused by Parvicapsula pseudobranchicola in the Norwegian aquaculture industry.

Outbreaks of botulism in commercial chicken flocks have occurred in Norway and Sweden in recent years and may result in extensive losses of birds but the reasons for why outbreaks occur remains unknown. The National Veterinary Institute in Oslo in collaboration with the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science and the National Veterinary Institute in Uppsala have received funding to examine the exent to which Clostridium botulinum exists within healthy chicken flocks and which may be the sources of infection.