Re-emergence of rabies in dogs and other domestic animals in eastern Bhutan, 2005-2007

postprintWe report a major outbreak of rabies in dogs and other domestic animals that occurred in eastern Bhutan between May 2005 and November 2007. The outbreak peaked in February 2006 and subsided by the end of April 2006 with sporadic cases reported until November 2007. Rabies affected 18 of the 40 sub-districts in the three eastern districts of Bhutan. There were reportedly one human and 256 domestic animal fatalities. The outbreak affected cattle (n=141, 55%), dogs (n=106, 41%), horses (n=7, 3%) and cats (n=2, 1%). Rabies was primarily diagnosed by clinical signs but 36 cases were confirmed by fluorescent antibody test of brain samples. High densities and movements of free-roaming dogs might have been responsible for the rapid spread and persistence of the infection for a longer period than expected in dogs in eastern Bhutan. Key words: Eastern Bhutan, epidemic, rabies outbreak

Re-emergence of rabies in dogs and other domestic animals in eastern Bhutan, 2005-2007

We report a major outbreak of rabies in dogs and other domestic animals that occurred in eastern Bhutan between May 2005 and November 2007. The outbreak peaked in February 2006 and subsided by the end of April 2006 with sporadic cases reported until November 2007. Rabies affected 18 of the 40 sub-districts in the three eastern districts of Bhutan. There were reportedly one human and 256 domestic animal fatalities. The outbreak affected cattle (n=141, 55%), dogs (n=106, 41%), horses (n=7, 3%) and cats (n=2, 1%). Rabies was primarily diagnosed by clinical signs but 36 cases were confirmed by fluorescent antibody test of brain samples. High densities and movements of free-roaming dogs might have been responsible for the rapid spread and persistence of the infection for a longer period than expected in dogs in eastern Bhutan. Key words: Eastern Bhutan, epidemic, rabies outbreak

Atypical Presentation of Post-Kala-Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis in Bhutan.

This article describes an atypical case of post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis associated with complications due to delayed diagnosis and poor case management. The grave consequences of the prolonged disease process that continued for over 2 decades with eventual healing included facial disfigurement, visual impairment, and mental distress both to the patient and the family. The persistent infection within the skin over a lengthy period with likely increased risk of infection spread in the community highlights its potential negative impact on the ongoing leishmaniasis elimination program in the Indian subcontinent. Bhutan is a member of the leishmaniasis elimination network in Asia, and the government continues to invest in maintenance of the national healthcare system. The case study reveals the gaps in the healthcare system with hardships faced by a patient to access quality healthcare and poor patient outcome used as proxy indicators. It also points to the need to enhance access to healthcare to ensure early diagnosis and effective treatment for leishmaniasis patients including those who live in remote areas, in order to achieve the planned disease elimination targets. It also points towards the key challenges faced by a resource poor nation such as Bhutan in achieving universal health coverage and reaching the set goals for disease elimination. The findings underscore the need for a careful review of the national health care system and to address the deficiencies

Malaria elimination in Bhutan: asymptomatic malaria cases in the Bhutanese population living in malaria-risk areas and in migrant workers from India

In 2018, Bhutan reported 54 cases of malaria, of which six were indigenous, 14 introduced and 34 imported. Considering the continuous reduction in the number of indigenous cases, Bhutan plans to eliminate malaria by 2025 under the Bhutan Malaria Elimination Strategy. The study was conducted to assess the presence of asymptomatic plasmodial infection in both, Bhutanese population living in malaria-risk areas and in migrant workers to guide the elimination strategies. A cross-sectional study was conducted from April to May 2016 in 750 Bhutanese people and 473 migrant workers. Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax infections were investigated by using a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Prevalence of asymptomatic plasmodial infection based on PCR was 0.27% (95% CI: 0.05–1.07%) among Bhutanese people with a mean age of 43 years old. The proportions of males and females were 45% and 55%, respectively. Among migrant workers, the prevalence of asymptomatic plasmodial infection was 0.42% (95% CI: 0.07– 1.69%) with a mean age of 30 years old. The majority of migrant workers were from the neighboring Indian State of West Bengal (57.51%), followed by Assam (12.26%). RDT in both study groups did not detect any plasmodial infection. The presence of a low prevalence of asymptomatic plasmodial infection indicates that the current elimination strategies and interventions are effective

Highly pathogenic reassortant avian influenza A(H5N1) virus clade 2.3.2.1a in poultry, Bhutan

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1), clade 2.3.2.1a, with an H9-like polymerase basic protein 1 gene, isolated in Bhutan in 2012, replicated faster in vitro than its H5N1 parental genotype and was transmitted more efficiently in a chicken model. These properties likely help limit/eradicate outbreaks, combined with strict control measures.Atanaska Marinova-Petkova, John Franks, Sangay Tenzin, Narapati Dahal, Kinzang Dukpa, Jambay Dorjee, Mohammed M. Feeroz, Jerold E. Rehg, Subrata Barman, Scott Krauss, Pamela McKenzie, Richard Webby, and Robert G. Webste

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Tenzin Dorjee's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity

Religious Routes to Conflict Mitigation: Three Papers on Buddhism, Nationalism, and Violence

The notion that religion intensifies nationalism and escalates conflict is widely accepted. In spite of its frequent association with violence, however, religious doctrines and institutions sometimes appear to have the radical power to deescalate conflict and reroute the expression of political grievances away from bloodshed. How, and under what conditions, might religion lend itself to the mitigation of ethnic conflict? Focusing on Buddhist nationalisms in East Asia and Southeast Asia, the three papers in this dissertation study the influence of religious beliefs on political attitudes and conflict behavior at various levels of analysis. Using ethnographic approaches, case study methods, and original field data collected from nearly a hundred interviews among Tibetan subjects in India and Sinhalese monastics in Sri Lanka, these essays seek to deepen the nuances and complexity in our understanding of the relationship between Buddhism, nationalism, and violence.Paper #1 studies the relationship between Buddhism and suicide protest, focusing on the puzzle of self-immolation: Why do high-commitment protesters in some conflicts choose this method over conventional tactics of nonviolent resistance or suicide terrorism? Taking the wave of Tibetan self-immolations between 2009 and 2018 as a case study, this paper probes the causal importance of strategic considerations, structural constraints, and normative restraints that may have influenced the protesters’ choice of method. I develop a theoretical framework proposing that suicide protesters evaluate potential tactics based on three criteria: disruptive capability, operational feasibility, and ethical permissibility. Leveraging in-depth interviews and a close reading of the self-immolators’ last words, I conclude that the Buddhist clergy’s broad conception of violence, interacting with international norms, constrains the protesters’ tactical latitude by narrowing the parameters of what qualifies as nonviolent action, thereby eliminating many of the standard repertoires of contention from the movement’s arsenal while sanctioning self-immolation as a legitimate form of dissent. I argue that a fundamental paradox in the self-immolators’ theory of change, namely the tension between a tactic’s disruptive capability and ethical permissibility, ends up restricting their freedom of action. Paper #2 zooms out to examine the relationship between religion, nationalism, and violence. It starts with a broad question: How, and under what conditions, might religion lend itself to the mitigation –– or the escalation –– of ethnonational conflict? To what extent do religious ideas travel from scripture to political preferences and conflict behavior? I develop two hypotheses predicting the influence of scriptural ideas on nationalist commitment and suggestibility to violence –– devoting special attention to how a group’s conception of its own national interest might be affected when the religious identity of its members supersedes their political identity. The paper finds that the Buddhist belief in rebirth can undermine the strength of one’s nationalist commitment by injecting a dose of ambiguity into one’s conception of identity. This suggests that a religious belief such as rebirth can be mobilized to deescalate ethnonational conflict by highlighting the fluidity of ethnic identity and thus lowering the stakes of conflict. Moreover, it also finds that Mahayana Buddhism’s emphasis on altruism, while rooted in compassion toward others, can end up increasing an individual’s suggestibility to violence and therefore should not be assumed to be a pacifying force in conflict. Mahayana doctrines, though built on more inclusivist founding principles than the Theravada tradition and therefore more resistant to exclusivist ideologies like nationalism, are nevertheless susceptible to utilitarian reasoning and lend themselves readily to the justification of violence. In our interviews, Tibetan monastics, educated under a uniform Mahayana curriculum, turned out to be far more suggestible to violence than their Theravada counterparts in Sri Lanka, an observation that supports our counterintuitive hypothesis linking an altruism-oriented curriculum with suggestibility to violence. Paper #3 takes a historical case study approach to examine how Buddhist religious ideas may have, in interaction with liberal international norms, influenced the Tibetan leadership’s de-escalation politics in the Sino-Tibetan conflict. While paper #2 of this dissertation explored Buddhism’s relationship with nationalism and violence at the level of rank-and-file citizens, this paper shifts the focus from group-level preferences to elite-level decision-making. It relies on document analysis and process tracing methods to answer a particular historical question: How did the independence-seeking Tibetan nationalist leadership of the 1960s evolve into compromise-seeking pacifists in the 1980s and subsequent decades? I seek to illuminate the pathways by which religious beliefs and charismatic leadership structure, in interaction with the normative constraints of liberal internationalism, may have facilitated the Tibetan leadership’s de-escalation politics in the Sino-Tibetan conflict. To do so, I leverage counterfactual history (Belkin & Tetlock, 1996), biographical data of key leaders (Creswell, 1998), and document analysis of their speeches and writings –– including a close examination of the Dalai Lama’s annual March 10 speeches from 1960 to 2011. While the other two papers explore the multifaceted relationship between Buddhism, nationalism, and violence by studying the political attitudes and conflict behavior of ordinary people and rank-and-file monastics, this paper delves into the political and psychological evolution of two Tibetan leaders, the Dalai Lama and former Tibetan prime minister Samdhong Rinpoche, to examine the ways in which private religious beliefs can interact with global norms to guide and constrain the high-level foreign policy decision-making of political elites

Two Family Libraries from Pemako (padma bkod)

Robert Mayer project introduction.rt