News

The disease tick-borne fever gives influenza-like symptoms in sheep and cattle. A factsheet on the disease is presented in Norwegian.

A local Norwegian newspaper "Asker og Bærum Budstikke", reports on a disease observed in small wild birds. The signs of disease is quite typical for avian pox. The lesions are typically found in the less feathered regions of the body. Avian pox virus in not known to infect humans.

As the zoonotic disease Q-fever has recieved increasing attention in Europeic countries, the Norwegian organisations KOORIMP and TINE, together with the National Veterinary institute, initiated an survey for antibodies against the Q-fever agent Coxiella burnetii in milk and blood samples from selected norwegian herds. All of the samples from 470 herds of dairy cows and 55 suckling cow herds were negative.

Researchers form the National Veterinary Institute have presented new research from a multitude of areas, as diseases, disease agens, epidemiologi, vectors and animal welfare at the biennial meeting on production animal reserch. The norwegian text gives short summaries of the presentations.

Norway has at present a very low prevalence of contagious diseases in production animals. However, there are reasons to be aware of the future development, as new diseases may be introduced to Norway. Factors as climatic change, illegal import of animals and meat, the establishment of new wildlife species, tourism and emergence of new diseases, may alter the disease situation.

Some serious contagious diseases are rare or non-existent in Norway. Imported dogs, especially street dogs, can bring these diseases to Norway. In many European countries these diseases are more commonplace.

Norwegian hunters has been reporting numbers of ticks and deer fly on red deer, roe deer and moose to the webpage www.flattogflue.no. The registration is a part of an ongoing research project to gather more information on the distribution of these parasites in Norway.

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The overview of suspected and confirmed cases of Pancreas disease (PD) in Norwegian fishfarms for 2008 is available. Pancreas disease has developed into one of the most serious diseases for the norwegian fishfarm-industry.

Not surprisingly the western counties are high on the statistics with Hordaland on top. These counties constitute the combat-zone for Pancreas disease. Within the zone there has been an increase in the number of reported cases the last few years. Apart from a few outbreaks in the north of Norway there has been no cases outside the combat-zone.

A multiresistant bacteria - MRSA (meticilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was found in a dog who had undergone surgery abroad. It is possible that the dog was contaminated in connection to the surgery. The National Veterinary Institute has found MRSA-bacteria in animals on three different cases previously in Norway.