Multi-host disease management: the why and the how to include wildlife.

In recent years, outbreaks caused by multi-host pathogens (MHP) have posed a serious challenge to public and animal health authorities. The frequent implication of wildlife in such disease systems and a lack of guidelines for mitigating these diseases within wild animal populations partially explain why the outbreaks are particularly challenging. To face these challenges, the French Ministry of Agriculture launched a multi-disciplinary group of experts that set out to discuss the main wildlife specific concepts in the management of MHP disease outbreaks and how to integrate wildlife in the disease management process.This position paper structures the primary specific concepts of wildlife disease management, as identified by the working group. It is designed to lay out these concepts for a wide audience of public and/or animal health officers who are not necessarily familiar with wildlife diseases. The group's discussions generated a possible roadmap for the management of MHP diseases. This roadmap is presented as a cycle for which the main successive step are: step 1-descriptive studies and monitoring; step 2-risk assessment; step 3-management goals; step 4-management actions and step 5-assessment of the management plan. In order to help choose the most adapted management actions for all involved epidemiological units, we integrated a decision-making framework (presented as a spreadsheet). This tool and the corresponding guidelines for disease management are designed to be used by public and health authorities when facing MHP disease outbreaks. These proposals are meant as an initial step towards a harmonized transboundary outbreak response framework that integrates current scientific understanding adapted to practical intervention.

Prevalence of Taenia saginata cysticercosis in French cattle in 2010.

Bovine cysticercosis is a foodborne disease caused by the cestode Taenia saginata with cattle as the intermediate host and humans as the final host. This disease is responsible for direct financial losses for farmers. It is also economically important because human infestation through raw or undercooked meat consumption can have a negative impact on the confidence the consumer has in the food industry. This study aimed to determine the apparent and true prevalence of bovine cysticercosis in France and describe the locations of identified cysticercosis lesions. The study sample included 4,564,065 cattle slaughtered in 2010 in France, among which 6491 were detected as harbouring cysticercosis lesions using the current EU meat inspection process. The overall apparent prevalence (including both viable and degenerated cysticerci) was estimated at 0.142% [0.142-0.143]. The true overall prevalence defined as the estimation of the prevalence after taking into account the sensitivity of meat inspection (detection fraction) was 1.23% [0.83-1.93]. The true prevalence of cattle with at least one viable cysticercus was 0.113% [0.076-0.189]. Taking into account both our results and those of a previous study on the prevalence of human cysticercosis in France, we estimated that one carcass could infest an average of 8-20 individuals. The spatial distribution of viable cysticerci showed that the highest apparent prevalence was found in eastern France. This study, the largest survey ever conducted on bovine cysticercosis in France, indicated a low but spatially heterogeneous prevalence of the parasite among the cattle population. Considering French eating habits, according to which it is not uncommon to consume undercooked meat, the possibility of humans being infested even though viable cysticerci are not detected during meat inspection is high. Increasing the detection sensitivity of meat inspection through the use of a risk-based meat inspection procedure should improve prevention of human infestation.