Need help with molecular biology

[lake]

Hi, am going to put 2 posts here and would ask for any possible guidance.

#1
Seem to have stumbled on a site which has all the info on animal health ref virus's around the world but not as I can find in the USA.

Not sure that I should be there but didn't hack it, just fell on it?

To change pages you need to change the reportid=11586 id, in the address line, so from 11586 to 11587 etc

Few items:
UK has had Schmallenberg virus confirmed since 23.01.2012 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11539

Australia has now its first case of avian H5 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11554

Israel has a MAJOR problem with Newcaslte virus millions of birds culled, no cure, http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11071

Russia, India, China the list goes on and on... many many problems, millions destroyed.
Just take the 9 million oysters destroyed, http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=9527 or the fact of salmon found to have virus's but were sold and I quote

This population had been slaughtered for human consumption by the time definitive laboratory results for ISA virus were available
this is 175000 fish! http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=7717
I cant go through all this my self and once its known that anyone can just go in there, it will be stopped!
So what do you think?


#2
Taking the "Schmallenberg virus".
This is an "Emerging disease". Began in Germany ( first outbreak 27/12/2011 and named after the town http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmallenberg ) Date of first confirmation of the event 12/01/2012 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11514

Then goes through Netherlands, sorry have to say the above is not correct! Even though we are told it started in Germany, it would seem that the first outbreak in the Netherlands was on the 19/12/2011 and Date of first confirmation of the event 19/12/2011 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11447

So the into France Start date 20/01/2012 Date of first confirmation of the event 24/01/2012 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11568, and now the UK Start date 14/01/2012 Date of first confirmation of the event 23/01/2012 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11539 Which then puts it sooner than France!!

Now this has moved very quickly.

As yet it is unknown if it can affect humans.


Reports say ithas only affected ruminants and transmission to humans is unlikely.
http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/diseases/schmallenberg_virus/index_en.htm


Based on all the available information, experts conclude that the transmission of the virus to humans cannot be excluded but is highly unlikely.
http://www.government.nl/issues/agriculture-and-livestock/animals/schmallenberg-virus

etc, etc, etc.

Now this is a
real-time reverse transcriptase/polymerase chain reaction (RRT-PCR)

reverse transcriptase http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcriptase

Well studied reverse transcriptases include:


HIV-1 reverse transcriptase from human immunodeficiency virus type 1

polymerase chain reaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction


The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a scientific technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence.

Developed in 1983 by Kary Mullis,

So this virus is DNA based and changes the DNA from the RNA?
Def need some help on this molecular biology stuff?

Oh forgot to say that what "Schmallenberg virus" does is mutate the ofspring of a species, who then all die.

So NO YOUNG!

Also please note that there has been No culling in any way to attempt to stop this!

[MorningSong]

Sorry...I hadn't seen this thread before today... there is so much turn-over here on Avalon, quite often things slip me by.

This is an interesting find you have stumbled upon, simgaz!

It all comes fron the World Organisation for Animal Health.... never heard of it before (shame on me).

http://www.oie.int/en


The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)

The need to fight animal diseases at global level led to the creation of the Office International des Epizooties through the international Agreement signed on January 25th 1924. In May 2003 the Office became the World Organisation for Animal Health but kept its historical acronym OIE.

The OIE is the intergovernmental organisation responsible for improving animal health worldwide.

It is recognised as a reference organisation by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in 2011 had a total of 178 Member Countries. The OIE maintains permanent relations with 45 other international and regional organisations and has Regional and sub-regional Offices on every continent.


How does the organisation function?

The organisation is placed under the authority and control of a World Assembly of Delegates consisting of Delegates designated by the Governments of all Member Countries.

The day-to-day operation of the OIE is managed at the Headquarters situated in Paris and placed under the responsibility of a Director General elected by the World Assembly of Delegates. The Headquarters implements the resolutions passed by the International Committee and developed with the support of Commissions elected by the Delegates:

Council
Regional Commissions (5)
Specialist Technical Commissions (4)

The OIE's financial resources are derived principally from compulsory annual contributions backed up by voluntary contributions from Member Countries.

I will be nosing around there to check it out.

What exactly did you need help with?

[unicorny]

#2
Taking the "Schmallenberg virus".
This is an "Emerging disease". Began in Germany ( first outbreak 27/12/2011 and named after the town http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmallenberg ) Date of first confirmation of the event 12/01/2012 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11514

Then goes through Netherlands, sorry have to say the above is not correct! Even though we are told it started in Germany, it would seem that the first outbreak in the Netherlands was on the 19/12/2011 and Date of first confirmation of the event 19/12/2011 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11447

So the into France Start date 20/01/2012 Date of first confirmation of the event 24/01/2012 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11568, and now the UK Start date 14/01/2012 Date of first confirmation of the event 23/01/2012 http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11539 Which then puts it sooner than France!!

Now this has moved very quickly.

As yet it is unknown if it can affect humans.


Reports say ithas only affected ruminants and transmission to humans is unlikely.
http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/diseases/schmallenberg_virus/index_en.htm


Based on all the available information, experts conclude that the transmission of the virus to humans cannot be excluded but is highly unlikely.
http://www.government.nl/issues/agriculture-and-livestock/animals/schmallenberg-virus

etc, etc, etc.

Now this is a
real-time reverse transcriptase/polymerase chain reaction (RRT-PCR)

reverse transcriptase http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcriptase

Well studied reverse transcriptases include:


HIV-1 reverse transcriptase from human immunodeficiency virus type 1

polymerase chain reaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction


The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a scientific technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence.

Developed in 1983 by Kary Mullis,

So this virus is DNA based and changes the DNA from the RNA?
Def need some help on this molecular biology stuff?

Oh forgot to say that what "Schmallenberg virus" does is mutate the ofspring of a species, who then all die.

So NO YOUNG!

Also please note that there has been No culling in any way to attempt to stop this!

Thanks for finding this I hope this information helps clarify some of your points
As far as I can tell it is a virus that causes birth defects in the lamb if the mother had the disease whilst she was pregnant (the same way that german measles/rubella can cause deafness in an unborn child if the mother is affected). by the look of the information it appears that all birth defects have been so severe that they are fatal at birth and effect the joints so they cant straighten. This is the reason that so many cases are appearing now as we are just entering the "lambing season" it is likely that the animals were infected last year in august/september during early pregnancy and more cases will almost certainly occur as the year goes on. It seems to have popped up from nowhere with the first case being reported in just summer 2011 in dairy cows (see http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/InfectiousDiseases/InfectionsAZ/EmergingInfections/SchmallenbergVirus/ ) this is obviously a real worry as it has spread quickly in cows sheep and goats

http://www.defra.gov.uk/ahvla/files/schmallenberg1.jpg

Here's a brief bit of molecular biology please feel free to ask if it is not clear or if you want more details I have tried to keep it simple.
DNA code the proteins that the cells in a body need to make. In order to make a protein the DNA is transcribed into RNA and then this RNA travels to another part of the cell which makes the protein. 3 units of RNA code for one ammino-acid, a protein is made from joining and folding amino-acids.
A virus is a very simple life-form which is basicly a protein covering round a small amount of DNA or in this case RNA. RNA viruses are ones that use RNA to store their information so they skip the DNA bit and go straight to making proteins this makes them highly contagious and the flu virus is an example of this type.
The rt-PCR mentioned in the data is simply the lab based methods that were used to detect the virus. PCR is a process which copies sections of DNA until you have enough copies to detect it, but as this is an RNA virus in order to do PCR the RNA needs to be converted to DNA first and this is done via reverse trascriptase.

It sounds like it could be a real worry for the future if it continues to spread at the rate it has and as it appears to be spread by midges it will be almost impossible to control the spread. I guess we will egt a better idea of the problem as the lambing season continues and as the midges " wake up" from their winter sleep and start biting everyone again. hopefully it wont spread to humans but could be a major issue for farmers I am more than a bit suspicious of the extremely sudden appearance though.

[lake]

Thanks for the replies Morningsong and Unicorny.

The bit I got concerned about was "real-time reverse transcriptase/polymerase chain reaction (RRT-PCR)" which as I read sounded all man made :eek: so ta for clearing that up! :o

I also am worried that midges do bite humans and what that may mean if this is zoonotic (which seems to mean - can be passed to humans)

[unicorny]

I found this pdf talking about the risks of transmission
http://www.onehealthportal.nl/media/2815/risk%20profile%20humaan%20schmallenbergvirus%20def%20version%20211211.pdf
to do a very quick summary of my scanning of the document it seems to say that This type of virus family doesn't often infect humans but there are some instances of this happening. Although the main reason it says that this is unlikely is because midges dont like to bite humans (the author has clearly never been to the west coast of scotland in the summer :) ) so I'm not sure how reasurring that is really.

[unicorny]

There are more and more cases of this appearing every week, (see updates below)
http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11539
this was a previously unknown disease and it seems to already be very widespread in southern england but as the lambs are born earlier in the south it is very likely that we may see a spread further north soon.

[Snoweagle]

It would appear that vaccinating the human population to death is not achievable, though destroying the food cycle is just as effective.

Especially on top of the global destruction of natural water tables by the lie of energy need. (all fracing for energy must cease immediately)

Droughts and food shortage: driven by the economic need. If you pay, you stay: alive that is . . .

Check the wording of the new laws being driven through the EU Parliament. All laws have an economic bent rather than developing humanity.

[lake]

Checking today and its still spreading! Glad I no longer eat meat!

http://web.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=11880

:eek: