| This cross sectional study was conducted by interviewing people attending the anti-rabies ward for post exposure rabies vaccination in a three Government General Hospitals, Chennai city. A total of 256 victims of dog bites from different areas of Chennai were interviewed with a pre tested structured questionnaire after informed verbal consent from victims between April 2013 and April 2014. Out of total 256 victims of dog bite, majority were males (71.87%) in the age group of 11 to 20 years (21.49%). Students outnumbered the general population (33.97%). Higher number of victims of dog bites was reported from Central Chennai. While 46 per cent of victims were bitten by stray dogs,in majority of victims, bite wounds were found in lower portion of the body (59.77%) with major exposure being minor scratches (57.4%). Fifty one per cent of bite victims washed their wounds and 48.44 per cent attended antirabies ward within 24 hours for post exposure prophylaxis. Our findings highlighted that a larger proportion of the bites were provoked, from owned pet dogs with exposures being very minor (scratch) in majority of cases which may not need post bite immunization. There is an urgent need to focus the educational campaigns throughout Chennai city with an effective dog population management combined with strategic immunization program and the effective use of rabies RIG and vaccination in dog bite cases as warranted could help to reduce rabies deaths.

The study objective is to develop an epidemiological model of brucellosis transmission dynamics among cattle in India and to estimate the impact of different prevention and control strategies. The prevention and control strategies are test-and-slaughter, transmission rate reduction, and mass vaccination. We developed a mathematical model based on the susceptible-infectious-recovered epidemic model to simulate brucellosis transmission dynamics, calibrated to the endemically stable levels of bovine brucellosis prevalence of cattle in India. We analyzed the epidemiological benefit of different rates of reduced transmission and vaccination. Test-and-slaughter is an effective strategy for elimination and eradication of brucellosis, but socio-cultural constraints forbid culling of cattle in India. Reducing transmission rates lowered the endemically stable levels of brucellosis prevalence correspondingly. One-time vaccination lowered prevalence initially but increased with influx of new susceptible births. While this epidemiological model is a basic representation of brucellosis transmission dynamics in India and constrained by limitations in surveillance data, this study illustrates the comparative epidemiological impact of different bovine brucellosis prevention and control strategies.

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Background: Rabies is invariably a fatal encephalomyelitis that is considered to be a serious public health problem. Rabies diagnosis must be rapid and conclusive. Detection and quantification of antirabies antibodies is used for assessment of the effectiveness of rabies vaccines. Hence, computer-automated detection of fluorescence using flow cytometry was attempted to reduce the work time required to undertake the conventional rapid fluorescent focus inhibition test (RFFIT). Conclusions: Thus, flow cytometry could be used to detect rabies virus antigen in infected cells and to predict serum antibody titres from a single dilution of serum tested with the potential advantages of automation, rapidity, and lack of subjectivity. It has the potential to replace the time-tested RFFIT in rabies serology in the years to come. q

Ovine paratuberculosis is a threat to small animal holders in terms of economic loss such as reduced growth performance and early culling. In order to study the slaughterhouse prevalence of ovine paratuberculosis, the slaughterhouse sheep samples (which are poor in body condition) collected over a period of two and half years from 1,034 suspected male sheep (poor in body condition) and 40 normal sheep (good body condition and subsequently negative by all the diagnostic tests employed) aged between 16 and 18 months were slaughtered at various abattoirs of Tamil Nadu. All the sheep taken in this study were maintained in almost same management conditions. DNA was extracted from 1,034 intestinal tissue and mesenteric lymph node and 121 were positive by IS 900 PCR. One hundred ten and 56 were positive by absorbed ELISA and Ziehl-Neelsen staining, respectively. In histopathology, 28 animals showed gross lesions of paratuberculosis infection (20-multibacillary and 8-paucibacillary forms). Out of 1,034 sheep tissues cultured, 32 showed cultural growth in Middlebrook 7H9 and 26 in Herrold's egg yolk medium. None of the 40 normal sheep were positive by any of the tests employed. In general, the mean body weight of paratuberculosis-affected animal either by any one of the tests employed was less than the non-affected sheep. The approximate economic loss per sheep/farmer/year is around Rs 1,840 (US$ 38.33) in paratuberculosis-affected sheep.