Lumpy skin disease (LSD) vaccination and epidemiological distribution remain unknown in some parts of Ethiopia including the Sidama regional state. With this, an assessment of LSD vaccine-related problems and serological study was performed in selected districts of Sidama regional state representing three agroecological zones from September 2021 to June 2022. A cross-sectional study of qualitative and quantitative studies was used. The result showed a few portion of respondents know about LSD (29.2%), and vaccinate their cattle (23.3%). 20.8% of the respondents stated LSD occurrence in their vaccinated cattle while focus group discussion with the professionals stated the possible reasons related to electric power disruption that impacted LSD vaccine cold-chain. The other study was on sero-epedimiology of LSD which showed an overall animal and herd level sero-prevalence of 40.8% and 81%, respectively. Higher and lower sero-prevalence was observed in lowland (48%) and highland (28%) areas, respectively. Furthermore, risk factor analysis showed the existence of a significant association between management systems, breed, and body condition score (BCS) of cattle. In conclusion, both qualitative and quantitative study results showed the need for intervention in terms of community-based awareness creation about LSD clinical signs, vaccination advantages, and options for electric power supply together with the frequently updated information on LSD prevalence.

The epidemiological patterns of Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD) in North Africa and Mediterranean Basin (MB) are endemic with highly socio-economic impacts. The objective of the study was conducted to investigate the level of sero-prevalence of BVDV in Libya and the associated risk factor. A total of 1599 serum samples were collected from herds of cattle which belonging to seven Libyan regions. All sera were assayed by using screening ELISA assay for detection of antibodies against BVDV. An overall seroprevalence of BVDV was estimated to be 48.6% (95% CI, 46.08%-50.98%). Considering the age group, a seroprevalence of 36.8% was detected in cattle <1 year, 41.0% in cattle between 1 and 2 years of age and 48.6% in cattle aged more than 2 years. Statistically significant differences (p<0.001) between age groups were reported. Seroprevalence of BVDV was significantly associated with geographical region (P=0.033). This is the first study on BVD in Libya and the results of this study would suggest that BVD is endemic in Libya.

The use of biomarkers to measure immune responses in serum is crucial for understanding population-level exposure and susceptibility to human pathogens. Advances in sample collection, multiplex testing, and computational modeling are transforming serosurveillance into a powerful tool for public health program design and response to infectious threats. In July 2018, 70 scientists from 20 countries met to perform a landscape analysis of approaches that support an integrated serosurveillance platform, including the consideration of issues for successful implementation. Here, we summarize the group’s insights and proposed roadmap for implementation, including objectives, technical requirements, ethical issues, logistical considerations, and monitoring and evaluation.

The severe and complex COVID-19 symptoms, often needing hospital care, occur suddenly, late in the virus replication stage of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Hospitalised patients have tissue damage due to micro-clots at multiple sites. Could long-covid, also clinically variable, be a milder form caused by “nano-clots”, too small to cause detectable tissue damage? The timing and suddenness of the onset of serious disease needs an explanation. A paper reported on the first 20 children needing urgent hospital care. No child had any symptoms prior to suddenly becoming seriously ill, only one had a positive PCR test but all had positive SARS-CoV-2 antibody test. That finding indicated to me that this onset occurred at the moment of sero-conversion. An emerging viral moiety, the virion-IgG-antibody complex, has concentrations rapidly increasing, then decreasing. It is known that influenza-IgG-antibody-complex consists of many virions bound together by the antibody. It seems a reasonable step to propose that SARS-2, being a large virus and having many spike proteins, can form larger clumps of virus-IgG-antibody complexes than with influenza, the former being sufficiently large to initiate micro-clots. Therefore, my hypotheses is that the SARS-CoV-2 virion-antibody complex initiates micro-clot formation. Either before or after sero-conversion, the complex will be at too low a concentration to initiate micro-clots. To be useful, a hypothesis should be testable, provide explanations and give predictions. My presentation will give examples. I like the way that several apparently separate pieces of a jig-saw puzzle have come together to form a single picture. [I suggest that the reader scrolls down to the addenda [10,11 & 12] before reading the ICAR Poster]

Diagnosis of canine leishmaniosis (CanL) still represents a major challenge due to the variable clinical manifestations and the large number of asymptomatic dogs. Serological tests are most commonly used to detect infected animals, revealing anti-Leishmania antibodies, mainly of IgG isotype. Recently, a new diagnostic antigen, rKLi8.3, containing 8.3 kinesin tandem repeats (TR) from an Leishmania infantum strain from Sudan has been shown to provide excellent specificity and sensitivity to Leishmania infected humans and dogs. However, asymptomatic animals with very low antibody titers are often difficult to detect by serodiagnosis. Thus, we wondered whether addition of an anti-IgG-enhancing step in the protein A/G-based rKLi8.3-ELISA will improve the diagnostic performance without decreasing the specificity. For this, parasitologically confirmed CanL cases with low or high clinical score, uninfected healthy controls and dogs with other infections were tested by rKLi8.3-ELISA as well as two different immunochromatographic rapid tests, rKLi8.3-lateral flow test (LFT) and Dual Path Platform (DPP®) based on the rK28 antigen. Our results show that the diagnostic accuracy of the rKLi8.3-ELISA and LFT was similar to that of DPP, missing several asymptomatic animals. However, addition of a secondary, amplifying anti-dog IgG antibody in the protein A/G-based rKLi8.3-ELISA enabled the detection of nearly all asymptomatic dogs without affecting its specificity.

Cross-sectional survey was conducted to capture the true extent of COVID-19 exposure among students and staff of Polytechnic High School (PHS). Random cluster sampling was carried out between May 19 and August 18, 2022, after the fourth wave of COVID-19 transmission. IgM and IgG SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were screened using WANTAI SARS-CoV-2 ELISA assays. Seroprevalence and descriptive statistics were calculated. Moreo-ver, the association between seropositivity and different factors (age, gender, preventive measures comorbidity, and symptoms, etc.) was determined using Logistic Regression. The overall IgG and IgM seroprevalence were 92% and 6.91% respectively. We found a higher IgM seroprevalence in men than women (9.4% vs. 5.6%) and a lower IgM seroprevalence in (18-25) age group compared to (55-65) years. Low compliance with preventive measures was found with a significant IgM seroprevalence depending on non-respect of social distancing (p = 0.008). A total of 70% of participants presented symptoms linked to COVID-19 at the moment of the survey. Results revealed a significant difference according to IgG seroprevalence among participants who declared fa-tigue symptoms 92.06% compared to those who did not 80.39% (p = 0.0027). IgM seropositivity was associated with Body Mass Indice (BMI) categorized (O.R. 0.238, p = 0.043), ethnic group (O.R. 0.723, p = 0.046) and marital status (O.R. 2.399, p = 0.021). Moreover, IgG seropositivity was associated with Chronic sinusitis comorbidity (O.R. 0.238, p = 0.043) and vaccination status (O.R. 4.741, p < 0.001). The majority of students and staff have al-ready been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and confirm the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in PHS at the time of the survey. Our results underline the importance of sero-epidemiological surveys to estimate the real impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in a community and to monitor disparities in antibody response in the population.

Control of canine infections with Leishmania infantum (L. infantum), a major zoonotic disease in Brazil and southern Europe is becoming increasingly important due to their close proximity to humans, the increasing import of dogs from endemic regions and impact of climate change on vector spreading. Simple, rapid and reliable diagnostic tests are therefore needed to detect infected dogs. Here, we re-evaluated different serological methods for the diagnosis of canine leishmaniosis (CanL) in Croatia and Brazil. The diagnostic performance of the indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT) and the VetLine® Leishmania ELISA was compared with three rKLi8.3 based diagnostic test systems, the rKLi8.3 ELISA, the INgezim® Leishma CROM lateral flow test (LFT) and the VetBlot® Leishmania LineBlot. CanL symptomatic dogs were efficiently diagnosed by all tests, except the VetLine® Leishmania ELISA, which is based on whole Leishmania antigens. The advantage of rKLi8.3 was also observed in oligo-and asymptomatic dogs from Brazil and Croatia, although with reduced diagnostic efficiency compared to symptomatic dogs. Similar to IFAT and rKLi8.3 ELISA, the LFT did not cross-react with other common canine pathogens, showed a very high specificity for healthy dogs from endemic regions of both countries and did not react with healthy, vaccinated dogs in Brazil. In conclusion, sero-diagnostic tests based on the rKLi8.3 antigens are superior to whole parasite antigens and the LFT has the advantage of providing a laboratory independent, rapid and specific diagnosis of CanL.