Monitoring land use and plant cover on an integrated agroecological production system through GIS.

The objective of this paper is to study in detail the land use and plant cover of an Integrated Agroecological Production System (IAPS) from 2003 through 2005. Four quarterly updating visits were performed on the 26 land units of the System from January 2003 to December 2005. Cartographic documents and QuickBird satellite images were also used to generate the final index maps for agrodiversity, fallow intensity and green manure use intensity. A high diversity of crops was observed. In some land units up to 40 plant species were recorded. However, this diversity was not uniformly distributed throughout the terrain. A high intensity of land use, mostly with annuals was also observed in a large part of the area. In most cases, fallow periods were up to 3 months in 3 years. Since annual crops demand intense tillage, minimum or no tillage practices are recommended for those areas to improve soil conservation. The use of legumes was less frequent on the land units used for annual crops. They were not uniformly distributed throughout the terrain. The results of this research are useful not only for those who are interested in the system itself, but also to validate the hypothesis that through GIS it is possible to summarize complex agroecological information into a visually friendly format, allowing easy interpretation of systemic analyses

European surveillance for enterovirus D68 during the emerging North-American outbreak in 2014

BACKGROUND: In August and September 2014, unexpected clusters of enterovirus-D68 (EV-D68) infections associated with severe respiratory disease emerged from North-America. In September, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) asked European countries to strengthen respiratory sample screening for enterovirus detection and typing in cases with severe respiratory presentations. OBJECTIVES: To provide a detailed picture of EV-D68 epidemiology in Europe by conducting a retrospective and prospective laboratory analysis of clinical specimens. STUDY DESIGN: An initiative supported by the European Society for Clinical Virology (ESCV) and ECDC was launched to screen for EV-D68 in respiratory specimens between July 1st and December 1st 2014 in Europe and to sequence the VP1 region of detected viruses for phylogenetic analytic purposes. RESULTS: Forty-two institutes, representing 51 laboratories from 17 European countries, analyzed 17,248 specimens yielding 389 EV-D68 positive samples (2.26%) in 14 countries. The proportion of positive samples ranged between 0 and 25% per country. These infections resulted primarily in mild respiratory disease, mainly detected in young children presenting with wheezing and in immuno-compromised adults. The viruses detected in Europe are genetically very similar to those of the North-American epidemic and the majority (83%) could be assigned to clade B. Except for 3 acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases, one death and limited ICU admissions, no severe cases were reported. CONCLUSIONS: The European study showed that EV-D68 circulated in Europe during summer and fall of 2014 with a moderate disease burden and different pathogenic profile compared to the North-American epidemic