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Honey bee colony health has received considerable attention in recent years, with many studies highlighting multifactorial issues contributing to colony losses. Disease and weather are consistently highlighted as primary drivers of colony loss, yet little is understood about how they interact. Here, we combined disease records from government honey bee health inspections with meteorological data from the CEDA to identify how weather impacts EFB, AFB, CBP, varroosis, chalkbrood and sacbrood. Using R-INLA, we determined how different meteorological variables influenced disease prevalence and disease risk. Temperature caused an increase in the risk of both varroosis and sacbrood, but overall, the weather had a varying effect on the six honey bee diseases. The risk of disease was also spatially varied and was impacted by the meteorological variables. These results are an important step in identifying the impacts of climate change on honey bees and honey bee diseases.

Chronic bee paralysis is a well-defined viral disease of honey bees with a global distribution that until recently caused rare but severe symptomatology including colony loss. Anecdotal evidence indicates a recent increase in virus incidence in several countries, but no mention of concomitant disease. We use government honey bee health inspection records from England and Wales to test whether chronic bee paralysis is an emerging infectious disease and investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of disease. The number of chronic bee paralysis cases increased exponentially between 2007 and 2017, demonstrating chronic bee paralysis as an emergent disease. Disease is highly clustered spatially within most years, suggesting local spread, but not between years, suggesting disease burnt out with periodic reintroduction. Apiary and county level risk factors are confirmed to include scale of beekeeping operation and the history of honey bee imports. Our findings offer epidemiological insight into this damaging emerging disease. Chronic bee paralysis is a viral disease of honey bees with a global distribution, but its epidemiology isn’t well understood. Here, Budge et al., using government honey bee health inspection records from England and Wales, demonstrate the disease is emergent and highlight periodic reintroduction of the disease between years.

Wildlife is a global source of endemic and emerging infectious diseases. The control of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle in Britain and Ireland is hindered by persistent infection in wild badgers (Meles meles). Vaccination with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has been shown to reduce the severity and progression of experimentally induced TB in captive badgers. Analysis of data from a four-year clinical field study, conducted at the social group level, suggested a similar, direct protective effect of BCG in a wild badger population. Here we present new evidence from the same study identifying both a direct beneficial effect of vaccination in individual badgers and an indirect protective effect in unvaccinated cubs. We show that intramuscular injection of BCG reduced by 76% (Odds ratio = 0.24, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.11-0.52) the risk of free-living vaccinated individuals testing positive to a diagnostic test combination to detect progressive infection. A more sensitive panel of tests for the detection of infection per se identified a reduction of 54% (Odds ratio = 0.46, 95% CI 0.26-0.88) in the risk of a positive result following vaccination. In addition, we show the risk of unvaccinated badger cubs, but not adults, testing positive to an even more sensitive panel of diagnostic tests decreased significantly as the proportion of vaccinated individuals in their social group increased (Odds ratio = 0.08, 95% CI 0.01-0.76; P = 0.03). When more than a third of their social group had been vaccinated, the risk to unvaccinated cubs was reduced by 79% (Odds ratio = 0.21, 95% CI 0.05-0.81; P = 0.02).

Background With over 800 million cases globally, campylobacteriosis is a major cause of food borne disease. In temperate climates incidence is highly seasonal but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood, making human disease control difficult. We hypothesised that observed disease patterns reflect complex interactions between weather, patterns of human risk behaviour, immune status and level of food contamination. Only by understanding these can we find effective interventions. Methods We analysed trends in human Campylobacter cases in NE England from 2004 to 2009, investigating the associations between different risk factors and disease using time-series models. We then developed an individual-based (IB) model of risk behaviour, human immunological responses to infection and environmental contamination driven by weather and land use. We parameterised the IB model for NE England and compared outputs to observed numbers of reported cases each month in the population in 2004–2009. Finally, we used it to investigate different community level disease reduction strategies. Results Risk behaviours like countryside visits (t = 3.665, P < 0.001 and t = − 2.187, P = 0.029 for temperature and rainfall respectively), and consumption of barbecued food were strongly associated with weather, (t = 3.219, P = 0.002 and t = 2.015, P = 0.045 for weekly average temperature and average maximum temperature respectively) and also rain (t = 2.254, P = 0.02527). This suggests that the effect of weather was indirect, acting through changes in risk behaviour. The seasonal pattern of cases predicted by the IB model was significantly related to observed patterns (r = 0.72, P < 0.001) indicating that simulating risk behaviour could produce the observed seasonal patterns of cases. A vaccination strategy providing short-term immunity was more effective than educational interventions to modify human risk behaviour. Extending immunity to 1 year from 20 days reduced disease burden by an order of magnitude (from 2412–2414 to 203–309 cases per 50,000 person-years). Conclusions This is the first interdisciplinary study to integrate environment, risk behaviour, socio-demographics and immunology to model Campylobacter infection, including pathways to mitigation. We conclude that vaccination is likely to be the best route for intervening against campylobacteriosis despite the technical problems associated with understanding both the underlying human immunology and genetic variation in the pathogen, and the likely cost of vaccine development.

Norovirus (NoV) is the most commonly recognized cause of acute gastroenteritis, with over a million cases globally per year. While usually self-limiting, NoV poses a substantial economic burden because it is highly contagious and there are multiple transmission routes. Infection occurs through inhalation of vomitus; faecal-oral spread; and food, water and environmental contamination. While the incidence of the disease is predictably seasonal, much less is known about the relative contribution of the various exposure pathways in causing disease. Additionally, asymptomatic excretion and viral shedding make forecasting disease burden difficult. We develop a novel stochastic dynamic network model to investigate the contributions of different transmission pathways in multiple coupled social networks representing schools, hospitals, care-homes and family households in a community setting. We analyse how the networks impact on transmission. We used ward-level demographic data from Northumberland, UK to create a simulation cohort. We compared the results with extant data on NoV cases from the IID2 study. Connectivity across the simulated cohort was high. Cases of NoV showed marked seasonality, peaking in early winter and declining through the summer. For the first time, we show that fomites and food appear to be the most important exposure routes in determining the population burden of disease. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: epidemic forecasting and control’. This theme issue is linked with the earlier issue ‘Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: approaches and important themes’.

Landscape management practices that alter the degree of habitat fragmentation can significantly affect the genetic structure of animal populations. British red squirrels use \"stepping stone\" patches of habitat to move considerable distances through a fragmented habitat. Over the past few decades, the planting of a large conifer forest has connected groups of forest fragments in the north of England with those in southern Scotland. This \"defragmentation\" of the landscape has resulted in substantial genetic mixing of Scottish and Cumbrian genes in squirrel populations up to 100 kilometers from the site of the new forest. These results have implications for the conservation management of animal and plant species in fragmented landscapes such as those found in Britain.

Control of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in cattle has proven particularly challenging where reservoirs of infection exist in wildlife populations. In Britain and Ireland, control is hampered by a reservoir of infection in Eurasian badgers (Meles meles). Badger culling has positive and negative effects on bovine TB in cattle and is difficult, costly and controversial. Here we show that Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination of captive badgers reduced the progression, severity and excretion of Mycobacterium bovis infection after experimental challenge. In a clinical field study, BCG vaccination of free-living badgers reduced the incidence of positive serological test results by 73.8 per cent. In common with other species, BCG did not appear to prevent infection of badgers subjected to experimental challenge, but did significantly reduce the overall disease burden. BCG vaccination of badgers could comprise an important component of a comprehensive programme of measures to control bovine TB in cattle.

The best practice tariff (BPT) incentivizes hospitals in the England and Wales National Health Service to provide multiprofessional care to patients with hip fractures. The initial six targets included: 1) admission under consultant-led joint orthopedic-geriatric care, 2) multidisciplinary assessment protocol on admission, 3) surgery within 36 hours, 4) geriatrician review within 72 hours, 5) multiprofessional rehabilitation, and 6) assessment for falls and bone protection. We aimed to examine the relationship between BPT achievement and important patient outcomes and whether the BPT could predict these independently of other validated predictors. A retrospective review was conducted on 516 patient episodes. Four outcomes were defined: 1) 30-day mortality, 2) 365-day mortality, 3) postoperative length of stay on trauma ward (LOS-T), and 4) total post-operative hospital LOS (LOS-H). Patient episodes were grouped as follows: 1) group 1, pre-BPT, 2) group 2, BPT achievers, 3) group 3, BPT fails. These were compared for mortality (χ (2) test) and for LOS (Kruskal-Wallis test). Event analysis was done for groups 2 and 3 using generalized linear modeling, with age, sex, American Society of Anesthesiologists grade, hemoglobin, albumin, creatinine, and BPT achievement evaluated as predictors. The three groups did not differ significantly in baseline characteristics or outcomes. In the event analysis, the risk of 30-day mortality was related only to abnormal creatinine (P=0.025); mortality at 365 days was related significantly to low albumin (P=0.023) and weakly to abnormal creatinine (P=0.089). The risks of both increased LOS-T and LOS-H were related to age only (P=0.052, P<0.001, respectively). Achieving BPT does not predict any outcome of interest on its own.

IntroductionThis study aimed to (1) report the rates of resistance against a variety of antibiotics for pure Staphylococcal infections, and (2) examine the impact of ALBC use at primary surgery has on resistance patterns for patients undergoing first-time revision of primary hip and knee arthroplasty for indication of infection.Materials and methodsData from the National Joint Registry database for England and Wales were linked to microbiology data held by Public Health England to identify a consecutive series of 258 primary hip and knee arthroplasties performed between April 2003 and January 2014 that went on to have a revision for Staphylococcal deep periprosthetic infection. Multivariate binary logistic regression was used to study predictors of microorganism resistance to a range of antimicrobials.ResultsAfter adjusting for patient and surgical factors, multivariate analysis showed the use of gentamicin-loaded bone cement at the primary surgery was associated with a significant increase in the risk of Staphylococcal gentamicin resistance (odds ratio 8.341, 95% CI 2.297–30.292, p = 0.001) and methicillin resistance (odds ratio 3.870, 95% CI 1.319–11.359, p = 0.014) at revision for infection.ConclusionsClinicians must anticipate the possibility of antibiotic resistance to ALBC utilised at primary surgery.

Melissococcus plutonius is the causative agent of European foulbrood (EFB), which is a serious brood disease of the European honey bee ( Apis mellifera ). EFB remains a threat because of a poor understanding of disease epidemiology. We used a recently published multi-locus sequence typing method to characterise 206 M. plutonius isolates recovered from outbreaks in England and Wales over the course of 2 years. We detected 15 different sequence types (STs), which were resolved by eBURST and phylogenetic analysis into three clonal complexes (CCs) 3, 12 and 13. Single and double locus variants within CC3 were the most abundant and widespread genotypes, accounting for 85% of the cases. In contrast, CCs 12 and 13 were rarer and predominantly found in geographical regions of high sampling intensity, consistent with a more recent introduction and localised spread. K -function analysis and interpoint distance tests revealed significant geographical clustering in five common STs, but pointed to different dispersal patterns between STs. We noted that CCs appeared to vary in pathogenicity and that infection caused by the more pathogenic variants is more likely to lead to honey bee colony destruction, as opposed to treatment. The importance of these findings for improving our understanding of disease aetiology and control are discussed.