Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (prion diseases) in animals may be associated with a zoonotic risk potential for humans as shown by the occurrence of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the wake of the bovine ...

The prevalence of feline foamy virus (FFV, spumaretrovirinae) in naturally infected domestic cats ranges between 30 and 80% FFV positive animals depending on age, sex and geographical region analyzed. Two serotypes have ...

Background: WNV epidemics occur worldwide, new WNV isolates were isolated in southern-east Europe belonging to WNV lineage 2. A first international proficiency study on WNV indicted that some laboratories were not able ...

Nach der Einführung der neuen Interferon-γ-Release Assays (IGRAs) in den Empfehlungen des Deutschen Zentralkomitees zur Bekämpfung der Tuberkulose im Jahre 2007 hat sich die Datenlage für deren Einsatz beträchtlich verbessert. ...

Background: We performed a case–control study to estimate vaccine effectiveness (VE) for prevention of hospitalization due to pandemic influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 (pH1N1) and to identify risk factors for pH1N1 and acute ...

While guidelines on contact tracing (CT) after exposure to certain infectious pathogens during air travel exist, no guidance documents are available on CT in response to potential exposure on public ground transport. We ...

The H5N1-clade 1 influenza vaccine strain NIBRG-14 produces exceptionally low amounts of antigen, a problem recently encountered also for initial pandemic H1N1-2009 vaccine seeds. Here, we report on a strategy that may ...

One goal of sequencing-based metagenomic community analysis is the quantitative taxonomic assessment of microbial community compositions. In particular, relative quantification of taxons is of high relevance for metagenomic ...

Nine carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae isolates collected from eight patients in five German hospitals were investigated. Six isolates produced the OXA-48 carbapenemase, and three isolates produced OXA-162, which is ...