Serological survey of Aujeszkys disease in Peninsular Malaysia in 2016

Aujeszky’s disease (AD) is a common swine disease that widespread throughout the world. The symptoms include nervous signs, respiration and reproduction problems that lead to great economic losses to the industry. AD is endemic in Malaysia, where outbreaks had been reported in previous years. In Malaysia, approximately 95% of the pig farms are vaccinated for AD. Despite the regular vaccination, AD serological status remains unknown in this country. This study provides AD serological status in Peninsular Malaysia in 2016 based on the samples submitted to Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University Putra Malaysia (UPM). A total of 1154 serum samples from 36 farms were submitted for AD ELISA diagnostic test; grouped as 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 20 weeks, gilts and sows with different parity. The samples were subjected to AD antibody detection with IDEXX Pseudorabies Virus gpI Antibody Test Kit. Among the 36 farms submitted to UPM, 8 farms were detected with positive gI antibody indicated that these farms were still facing challenges from AD field virus. Among these eight seropositive farms, three farms were having seroprevalence in the range of 33.33% to 37.14%. In general, vaccination of AD is ideal and stable in Malaysia but we still need to be alert with the field challenge as it will be a threat to the industry

A Survey of Gastrointestinal Parasites of Domestic Cats (Fells catus) in Kuching, Sarawak.

Domestic cats (Fells catus) are known to be commonly infected with parasites because of their habit of roaming freely, especially stray cats. Up until now, there are still lack of information and published papers regarding parasites of cat in Sarawak. Main objective of this study was to investigate and compare the gastrointestinal parasites of house-owend and stray cats. A total of 60 faecal samples were collected from domestic cats in Kuching, in which 30 samples from house-owned and stray cats each. Concentration technique such as centrifugal floatation and sedimentation were used for the examination of gastrointestinal parasites. Overall prevalence of gastrointestinal parasites in all cats was 46.67% (28/60) in this study, where gastrointestinal parasite prevalence of house-owned cats was 33.33% (10/30) and stray cats was 60% (18/30). Detected nematode species includes Ancvlostoma spp. (30%). Toxocara spp. (10%) and Toxascaris leonina (5%) while recovered flatworm (18.83%) includes 17 different types of morphologies. Isospora spp. was the only protozoan parasite species recovered in this study with the prevalence of 6.67%. There was no significant difference on species diversity of gastrointestinal parasite between house-owned and stray cats

Serological status and associated risk factors of Aujeszky's Disease and Classical Swine Fever in Peninsular Malaysia

Aujeszky's Disease (AD) and Classical Swine Fever (CSF) are endemic viral diseases causing great economic impact to the pig industry with limited data about the current disease status in Malaysia. Hence, our study was aimed to determine the serological status of AD and CSF, investigate ADV field challenge and CSF protection, and identify the possible risk factors contributed to the current situation in Peninsular Malaysia swine farms based on commercial samples submitted to UPM during 2016-2017. In this study, convenient sampling method was used and questionnaire was carried out in accessible farms. ELISA test was conducted using IDEXX Pseudorabies Virus gpI Antibody Test Kit for AD and IDEXX Classical Swine Fever Ab ELISA Test Kit for CSF serology diagnosis. Seroprevalence of AD indicates the infection status while seroprevalence of CSF signifies humoral protection status in this study. All tested farms were categorized according to their location into three categories, (northern, central, and southern region). A total number of 71 farms with 2192 serum samples were submitted for AD ELISA test from 2016 to 2017. Overall AD infection rate is 75.87% from the farms in Peninsular Malaysia submitted to UPM within 2016 to 2017. Seroprevalence in 2017 was higher than the year before. Infection was seen more in breeder herd, especially in sows. Findings shown small-scale farms and open-housed system in farms were associated with the increased risk of AD infection when tested with multinomial logistic regression statistical test. For CSF, 58 farms with 2073 samples in total were received from 2016 to 2017. Farm status classification system was developed in our study with the aim to differentiate the CSF serology results into three status categories (ideal, moderate, and less ideal) according to defined criteria. Generally, 44.78% of the farms were categorized as ideal farm status with overall seroprevalence of 71.37%. Highest seropositive farms were obtained from southern region while northern region had the lowest. Significant associations were found in small-scale farms, vaccine brand, and single vaccination with seronegativity. Inversely, vehicle dip and foot dip were significantly related with seropositive of CSF indicating these practices were important in preventing diseases from entering the farm. Based on the findings in our study, current status of AD is stable while current CSF vaccination program is still insufficient to provide ideal humoral protection in Malaysia

IMPLICATIONS OF THE RAPIDLY EMERGING CAFE INDUSTRY: TIONG BAHRU AND BEYOND

Bachelor'sBACHELOR OF SCIENCE (REAL ESTATE

Mapping dengue risk in Singapore using Random Forest.

Singapore experiences endemic dengue, with 2013 being the largest outbreak year known to date, culminating in 22,170 cases. Given the limited resources available, and that vector control is the key approach for prevention in Singapore, it is important that public health professionals know where resources should be invested in. This study aims to stratify the spatial risk of dengue transmission in Singapore for effective deployment of resources.Random Forest was used to predict the risk rank of dengue transmission in 1km2 grids, with dengue, population, entomological and environmental data. The predicted risk ranks are categorized and mapped to four color-coded risk groups for easy operation application. The risk maps were evaluated with dengue case and cluster data. Risk maps produced by Random Forest have high accuracy. More than 80% of the observed risk ranks fell within the 80% prediction interval. The observed and predicted risk ranks were highly correlated ([Formula: see text]≥0.86, P <0.01). Furthermore, the predicted risk levels were in excellent agreement with case density, a weighted Kappa coefficient of more than 0.80 (P <0.01). Close to 90% of the dengue clusters occur in high risk areas, and the odds of cluster forming in high risk areas were higher than in low risk areas.This study demonstrates the potential of Random Forest and its strong predictive capability in stratifying the spatial risk of dengue transmission in Singapore. Dengue risk map produced using Random Forest has high accuracy, and is a good surveillance tool to guide vector control operations