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Owing to frequent reports of suspected outbreaks and the presence of reservoir hosts and vectors (warthogs, bushpigs and O. moubata ticks), African swine fever (ASF) is believed to be an endemic disease in Uganda. There have, however, been very few studies carried out to…

Lymphoblastoid cell lines 265(L) and 990(O) are monoclonal lymphomas, derived respectively from liver and ovarian tumours, generated in inbred P-line (MHC B19/B19) chickens infected with RB-1B strain of Marek's disease virus (MDV) and pRB-1B5 BAC clone respectively. These…

Many ticks have been shown to be infected with intracellular bacteria. One of these bacteria is Candidatus Midichloria mitochondrii which is the only characterized bacterium that has the ability to invade the mitochondria within ovarian cells and consume them without any…

Dendritic cell antigen targeting primes robust immune responses in mouse models. Optimizing this immunization strategy in the actual hosts that require protection will advance development of efficacious contemporary vaccines. In a proof-of-concept study, we tested the…

Contact networks can provide useful insights into animal behaviour and have the potential to quantify the spread of disease. Successful control of livestock diseases requires an understanding of how they spread amongst animals and between premises. Whilst movement records…

The immune defense against FMDV has been correlated to the antibody mediated component. However, there are occasions when some animals with high virus neutralising (VN) antibody are not protected following challenge and some with low neutralising antibody which do not…

Prior to the recent outbreak of equine encephalosis in Israel in 2009, equine encephalosis virus (EEV) had only been isolated from equids in South Africa. In this study we show the first evidence for the circulation of EEV beyond South Africa in Ethiopia, Ghana and The…

Despite the widespread use of bluetongue serotype 8 (BTV-8) inactivated vaccines across Europe from 2008 to 2011, two very practical questions remain unanswered about the length of persistence of group-specific antibodies in milk and serum post-vaccination and the duration…

African horse sickness virus serotype 9 (AHSV-9) has been known for some time to be circulating amongst equids in West Africa without causing any clinical disease in indigenous horse populations. Whether this is due to local breeds of horses being resistant to disease or…

Marek's disease (MD) is caused by Marek's disease virus (MDV). Various vaccines including herpesvirus of turkeys (HVT) have been used to control this disease. However, HVT is not able to completely protect against very virulent strains of MDV. The objective of this study was…