Rabies in Europe--trends and developments.

Rabies continues to be a major public health concern both in Europe and worldwide. In the greater part of the European continent the disease has been eradicated, or its incidence drastically reduced, by oral vaccination of wildlife reservoirs. Yet, 'hot spots' still remain in north-eastern and south-eastern Europe with a high temporal variation of disease distribution in the previous decade. Rabies is predominantly transmitted by the red fox; but in recent years, especially in Eastern European countries, an independent infection cycle in raccoon dogs seems to have developed. Although countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland achieved very impressive rabies control results and trend analyses of rabies occurrence showed a long- and short-term decrease, there is still need for improved rabies surveillance and control in Europe. The Rabies Bulletin Europe (RBE), a quarterly, printed and on-line publication, aims to improve this situation. Besides the need to improve the quality of data in some countries, it will provide a public domain rabies database in the near future. Further strategic cooperation is necessary to control the disease in areas of European public health concern.

The impact of parity and duration of biotin supplementation on white line disease lameness in dairy cattle.

A field study was conducted to examine effects of oral biotin supplementation for up to 18 mo on risks of lameness in dairy cows. The study included a total of 900 cattle from five dairy farms in Gloucestershire, southwest U.K., in a within-herd randomized control trial. The data from this trial were used in this paper to investigate the impact of parity and duration of supplementation with oral biotin at 20 mg/d on white line disease (WLD) lameness. Analysis of the data indicated that WLD increased with increasing parity independent of biotin supplementation from approximately two cases per 100 cow years in primiparous cows to 15.5 cases per 100 cow years in all multiparous cows, but up to 47.7 cases per 100 cow years for cows in parities > or = 5. Supplementation with biotin reduced WLD lameness by 45% in multiparous cows down to 8.5 cases per 100 cow years, whereas the effect of biotin supplementation in primiparous cows was not significant. Although numerical reductions in WLD lameness were observed for shorter periods of supplementation, a supplementation length of at least 6 mo was required to significantly reduce the risk of WLD lameness in multiparous cows. The effect of biotin supplementation in reducing lameness has potential impact for both animal welfare and farm economics.