No abstract

Background Porcine epidemic diarrhoea (PED) is an emergent/re-emergent viral pig disease (caused by the virus belonging to the Coronaviridae family, in specific the Alphacoronavirus genus) of global importance. Clinical presentation is characterized with acute diarrhoea, vomiting and dehydration in pigs of all ages, with a possible high mortality in suckling piglets. The disease emerged in the USA in 2013 causing heavy losses, and re-emerged in Europe in 2014, but with milder consequences. Results In the spring 2016, PED-like symptoms were reported to be seen on an agricultural holding in Eastern Croatia; laboratory workup confirmed the Croatia’s first PED outbreak ever. Porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus (PEDV) strain responsible for the outbreak was of the S-INDEL genotype, much the same as other European PEDV strains. In 2017, a post-outbreak serology was carried out in three counties in Eastern Croatia, revealing seropositivity in pigs bred on four large industrial holdings (9.09%). The seroprevalence across PEDV-positive holdings was up to 82.8%. The latter holdings were unanimously managed by an enterprise that had never reported PED before. Conclusions PED has emerged in Croatian pig population causing potentially considerable losses. The circulating strain was of the S-INDEL genotype. Serological workup proved PEDV spread to another four agricultural holdings, demonstrating the importance of not only external, but also internal biosecurity measures.

Background Assessment of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) resulting from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) requires specific calculation methods and input data. The aims of this study were to: (i) identify existing NCD burden of disease (BoD) activities in Europe; (ii) collate information on data sources for mortality and morbidity; and (iii) provide an overview of NCD-specific methods for calculating NCD DALYs. Methods NCD BoD studies were systematically searched in international electronic literature databases and in grey literature. We included all BoD studies that used the DALY metric to quantify the health impact of one or more NCDs in countries belonging to the European Region. Results A total of 163 BoD studies were retained: 96 (59%) were single-country or sub-national studies and 67 (41%) considered more than one country. Of the single-country studies, 29 (30%) consisted of secondary analyses using existing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results. Mortality data were mainly derived (49%) from vital statistics. Morbidity data were frequently (40%) drawn from routine administrative and survey datasets, including disease registries and hospital discharge databases. The majority (60%) of national BoD studies reported mortality corrections. Multimorbidity adjustments were performed in 18% of national BoD studies. Conclusion The number of national NCD BoD assessments across Europe increased over time, driven by an increase in BoD studies that consisted of secondary data analysis of GBD study findings. Ambiguity in reporting of the use of NCD-specific BoD methods underline the need for reporting guidelines of BoD studies to enhance transparency of NCD BoD estimates across Europe.

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a toxic secondary metabolite produced by the fungi of Aspergillus and Penicillium species. Data indicate a frequent OTA contamination of cereals and cereal products, and consequently also the contamination of meat and meat products. The aim of this study was to determine a possible level of meat product consumers' exposure to OTA through the consumption of dry-cured and fermented meat products available on the Croatian market. Data showed the weekly OTA intake of 90% of male dry-cured ham consumers to be a maximum of 51.9 ng kg(-1) b.w., i.e., far below the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) of 120 ng kg(-1) b.w. weekly set out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). OTA intake coming from the consumption of other meat products under study is lower and ranges from 0.1 to 42.1 ng kg(-1) b.w. weekly, dependent on the study. The study demonstrated that meat products in Croatia do not constitute a notable source of OTA in the human diet, so that the human health risk coming from the consumption of dry-cured and fermented meat products is negligible.

Chicken meat from intensive broiler production have different quality compared with meat from native chicken breeds and chicken from a free range production system. The aim of the present study was to evaluate differences in fatty acids content of meat of Naked Neck chickens rared in free range system and two commercial broiler breeds (Cobb 308 and Hybro G+) reared in conventional production system. The trial involved 100 chickens per group. Fattening period lasted 42 days for convencional system and 84 days for free range system. Breast meat of Naked Neck chicken had statisticaly more 16:0 content compared with Cobb 308 (p≤0.