Epidemics of Emerging Animal Diseases and Food‐Borne Infection Problems Over the Last 5 Years in Japan

Abstract

There have been several emerging animal diseases and food-borne infection problems occurring in Japan over the last 5 years. We describe brief pictures of these epidemics and our control activities. As acute contagious and/or emerging animal diseases, the foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak caused by the Pan-Asian topotype of the type O virus occurred in March 2000 after 92 years of FMD-free status. In 2004, four cases of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which was the first outbreak after 79 years, and caused by the H5N1 subtype, were identified. As part of the responses against these outbreaks, all the animals in the affected farms were destroyed, and movement control areas were established around the infected premises, and a nation-wide intensive survey for FMD and HPAI was performed. As for food-borne or feed-borne infections, the first bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was identified in September 2001 and 19 more cases have been reported until June 2005. A large outbreak of food-borne infection caused by low-fat milk contaminated with enterotoxin A produced by Staphylococcus aureus, involving more than 13,000 patients, occurred in 2000. In 2003, people who consumed uncooked liver and meat from wild boar and deer developed clinical signs of hepatitis caused by the hepatitis E virus. Pork is also suspected as natural source of virus transmission. Early detection of the first cases and rapid action in preventing and controlling the spread of infections are very important combined with proper risk communication about correct information of the diseases.

Natural history of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1

“…The route of introduction of these viruses into either country could not be determined. H5N1 virus was not detected in migratory waterfowl during active surveillance following the outbreaks in South Korea, and a connection between migratory birds and the outbreaks in Japan could not be verified (Lee et al, 2005; Mase et al, 2005; Yamane, 2006). …”

Methicillin‐Resistant Staphylococcus aureus from Brazilian Dairy Farms and Identification of Novel Sequence Types

“…Community‐acquired MRSA have been reported increasingly in the last two decades and in some cases have been shown to be different from HA‐MRSA (Vandenesch et al., ). Although staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks caused by milk and dairies consumption have been reported worldwide (Yamane, ), the role of livestock and the overall significance of MRSA as a foodborne pathogen remains to be investigated. The first reported CA‐MRSA infection in Brazil was found to be associated with ST30‐SCCmecIV (Rozenbaum et al., ), while the majority of HA‐MRSA infections is associated with the clone ST239‐MRSA‐IIIA (Oliveira and De Lencastre, ).…”

Evaluation of the Control Strategy for the 2010 Foot-and-Mouth Disease Outbreak in Japan Using Disease Simulation

“…The scale of this epidemic was different from the previous FMD epidemic that occurred in Miyazaki and Hokkaido Prefectures in 2000, which in total involved only four infected premises. The primary control strategy in earlier epidemics comprised a combination of depopulation of IPs, imposition of movement restrictions and active surveillance in high‐risk premises (Yamane, ; Muroga et al., ). In the 2010 epidemic, authorities resorted to a vaccinate‐to‐die policy at 5 weeks after detection of the index case because of failure of the initial response strategy.…”