Ann Lindberg - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Ann Lindberg

Bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) infection is endemic in most cattle-producing countries throu... more Bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) infection is endemic in most cattle-producing countries throughout the world, inflicting significant economic losses. Since many if not most BVDV isolates are well adapted to cattle, the virus causes a stealthy infection and many acute (i.e. transient) infections go unnoticed provided that the virulence of the strain is low and that there are no complicating conditions. However, since BVDV virulence may vary and infection is accompanied by transient immunosuppression there is a complex of diseases attributable to acute BVDV infections, ranging from respiratory and enteric conditions to lethal haemorrhagic disease (Baker, 1995). The highest losses caused by BVDV infections occur as a result of its interference with reproductive functions. Depending on the time of infection, there may be a significant reduction of conception rates, an increased number of abortions, malformations, stillbirths or birth of persistently infected (PI) calves. The latter ...

Evaluation of the surveillance system for MAP infection in Swedish cattle

Previous investigations suggest that the prevalence of M. avium subsp. Paratuberculosis (MAP) in ... more Previous investigations suggest that the prevalence of M. avium subsp. Paratuberculosis (MAP) in Swedish cattle is close to zero and all recent cases have been linked to imported animals (the two latest cases were detected in 2000 and 2005). According to Swedish legislation clinical suspicions are notifiable and prompt official investigations. Moreover, eradication measures are taken on detection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the surveillance system for MAP infection in Swedish cattle and to estimate the probability of freedom from disease. Calculations of surveillance sensitivities and probability of freedom were made using scenario-tree modelling. This type of model allows inclusion of information from several different sources, e.g. random or non-random surveillance data as well as documentations of differences in risk. The surveillance components identified and included in the present model were fallen stock necropsies, screening of importing herds, surveys of dairy her...

RISKSUR – Enhancing Animal Health Surveillance Systems

Qualitative comparison of BVDV control programmes in Europe to substantiate freedom from infection

Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Eurosurveillance

Echinococcus multilocularis is a parasite that can cause alveolar echinococcosis disease. After t... more Echinococcus multilocularis is a parasite that can cause alveolar echinococcosis disease. After the first positive finding of E. multilocularis in Sweden in 2011, a consulting group with representatives from relevant authorities was summoned. In this group, all relevant information was shared, strategies for information dissemination and any actions to be taken due to the finding of E. multilocularis were discussed and decided. The present paper describes the actions taken during 2011 and the results thereof, including surveillance in animals, risk assessment for humans to become infected and recommendations given to the public. Further discussion about whether the parasite was introduced, and if so, how, as well as possible future development of the infection in animals and humans in Sweden and future actions are included.

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics

Data sharing remains a barrier to joint surveillance and the establishment of contingency plans a... more Data sharing remains a barrier to joint surveillance and the establishment of contingency plans among countries and institutions. Summary statistics are hard to interpret and compare, and nomenclatures for animal disease classification are seldom used. SSynCAHD (Syndromic Classification in Animal Health Data) proposes to harmonise, through the development on an ontology, syndromic surveillance data use rather than data recording. This will be achieved by standardising classification into syndromes, based on records from different sources of animal health data which are (and will continue to be) recorded using an institution own vocabulary.

Acta veterinaria Scandinavica, 2018

A study of herd-level risk factors for calf mortality in large Swedish dairy herds showed low ser... more A study of herd-level risk factors for calf mortality in large Swedish dairy herds showed low serum concentrations of α-tocopherol and β-carotene in 1-7 day old calves to be more common in high mortality herds. Therefore, we aimed to investigate if calf mortality risk at herd level is associated with concentrations of α-tocopherol and/or β-carotene at individual level in feed, colostrum, cow and calf serum, while controlling for herd level covariates. Inclusion criteria were affiliation to the Swedish official milk recording scheme, herd size of ≥ 120 milking cows/year, calf mortality risk (day 1-90) of at least 6% (high mortality; HM) or less than 1% (low mortality; LM) and located within one of two regions in southern Sweden. This cross-sectional study was performed in 2010 in 19 (n = 9; n = 10) dairy herds. Questionnaires were used to collect information about feed and routines for colostrum feeding. Feed (n = 57), colostrum (n = 162), cow serum (n = 189) and calf serum samples (...

Contribution of meat inspection to animal health surveillance in Swine

EFSA Supporting Publications

Frontiers in public health, 2017

One Health (OH) positions health professionals as agents for change and provides a platform to ma... more One Health (OH) positions health professionals as agents for change and provides a platform to manage determinants of health that are often not comprehensively captured in medicine or public health alone. However, due to the organization of societies and disciplines, and the sectoral allocation of resources, the development of transdisciplinary approaches requires effort and perseverance. Therefore, there is a need to provide evidence on the added value of OH for governments, researchers, funding bodies, and stakeholders. This paper outlines a conceptual framework of what OH approaches can encompass and the added values they can provide. The framework was developed during a workshop conducted by the "Network for Evaluation of One Health," an Action funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology. By systematically describing the various aspects of OH, we provide the basis for measuring and monitoring the integration of disciplines, sectors, and stakeholders in...

Veterinary epidemiology: Forging a path toward one health

Preventive veterinary medicine, 2017

The One Health concept has been extensively used to describe those practices that support transdi... more The One Health concept has been extensively used to describe those practices that support transdisciplinary collaborations involving animal and human health and the environment. During the past International Society of Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics (ISVEE) conference in Merida (Mexico) in November 2015, a panel discussion was held to identify gaps and needs required for success with such approaches. Key messages included further development of dynamic, transdisciplinary collaborations, new mechanisms for obtaining, integrating and interpreting data from diverse sources, the identification of One Health joint priorities and resources for the veterinary and public health professions, and operationalization and institutionalization of One Health. Additionally, all abstracts that were presented at ISVEE containing the term "One Health" were identified. There has been an increase in the use of the term over time. One Health research has been presented at ISVEE since at ...

Veterinary Research, 2016

European Union legislation requires member states to keep national databases of all bovine animal... more European Union legislation requires member states to keep national databases of all bovine animals. This allows for disease spread models that includes the time-varying contact network and population demographic. However, performing data-driven simulations with a high degree of detail are computationally challenging. We have developed an efficient and flexible discrete-event simulator SimInf for stochastic disease spread modelling that divides work among multiple processors to accelerate the computations. The model integrates disease dynamics as continuous-time Markov chains and livestock data as events. In this study, all Swedish livestock data (births, movements and slaughter) from July 1st 2005 to December 31st 2013 were included in the simulations. Verotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (VTEC O157) are capable of causing serious illness in humans. Cattle are considered to be the main reservoir of the bacteria. A better understanding of the epidemiology in the cattle population is necessary to be able to design and deploy targeted measures to reduce the VTEC O157 prevalence and, subsequently, human exposure. To explore the spread of VTEC O157 in the entire Swedish cattle population during the period under study, a within-and betweenherd disease spread model was used. Real livestock data was incorporated to model demographics of the population. Cattle were moved between herds according to real movement data. The results showed that the spatial pattern in prevalence may be due to regional differences in livestock movements. However, the movements, births and slaughter of cattle could not explain the temporal pattern of VTEC O157 prevalence in cattle, despite their inherently distinct seasonality.

Porcine Health Management, 2016

Background: Antimicrobial resistance is an increasing problem and reducing AM use is critical in ... more Background: Antimicrobial resistance is an increasing problem and reducing AM use is critical in limiting its severity. The underlying causes of antimicrobial use at pig farm level must be understood to select effective reduction measures. We previously showed that antimicrobial use on Swedish pig farms is comparatively low but varies between farms, although few farms are high users. In the present survey of a convenience sample of 60 farrow-to-finish herds in Sweden, we investigated farmers' attitudes to antimicrobials and the influence of information provided by veterinarians about antimicrobial resistance. Farm characteristics were also recorded. We had previously quantified antimicrobial use for different age categories of pigs during one year, as well as external and internal biosecurity. Risk factors based on hypothetical causal associations between these and calculated treatment incidence (TI) for the different age categories were assessed here in a linear regression model. Results: There were no significant associations between biosecurity and TI for any pig age category. Increasing farmer age was associated with higher TI for suckling piglets and fatteners. For suckling piglets, the age group with the highest frequency of treatment, TI was also significantly associated with farmer and education of the staff, where female farmers, and university educated staff was associated with a higher TI. Larger farms were associated with a higher TI in fatteners. Conclusions: In the investigated Swedish pig farms, factors that influenced antimicrobial usage were more related to characteristics of the individual farmer and his/her staff than to biosecurity level, other management factors or farmers' attitudes to antimicrobials.

Infection Ecology & Epidemiology, 2015

Background: We describe a veterinary syndromic surveillance system developed in Sweden based on l... more Background: We describe a veterinary syndromic surveillance system developed in Sweden based on laboratory test requests. Materials and methods: The system is a desktop application built using free software. Results: Development took 1 year. During the first year of operation, utility was demonstrated by the detection of statistically significant increases in the number of laboratory submissions. The number of false alarms was considered satisfactory in order to achieve the desired sensitivity. Discussion: Besides the demonstrated benefit for disease surveillance, the system contributed to improving data quality and communication between the diagnostic departments and the epidemiology department.

Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2016

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Glucose Changes in Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes During Air Pressure Changes as When Skydiving

Diabetes Technology &amp Therapeutics

Longitudinal observational study over 38 months of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 status in 126 cattle herds

Preventive veterinary medicine, 2015

Verotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (VTEC O157:H7) is an important zoonotic pathogen capable o... more Verotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (VTEC O157:H7) is an important zoonotic pathogen capable of causing infections in humans, sometimes with severe symptoms such as hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). It has been reported that a subgroup of VTEC O157:H7, referred to as clade 8, is overrepresented among HUS cases. Cattle are considered to be the main reservoir of VTEC O157:H7 and infected animals shed the bacteria in feces without showing clinical signs of disease. The aims of the present study were: (1) to better understand how the presence of VTEC O157:H7 in the farm environment changes over an extended period of time, (2) to investigate potential risk factors for the presence of the bacteria, and (3) describe the distribution of MLVA types and specifically the occurrence of the hypervirulent strains (clade 8 strains) of VTEC O157:H7. The farm environment of 126 cattle herds in Sweden were sampled from October 2009 to December 2012 (38 months) using pooled p...

BMC veterinary research, Jan 14, 2015

This study focused on the descriptive analysis of cattle movements and farm-level parameters deri... more This study focused on the descriptive analysis of cattle movements and farm-level parameters derived from cattle movements, which are considered to be generically suitable for risk-based surveillance systems in Switzerland for diseases where animal movements constitute an important risk pathway. A framework was developed to select farms for surveillance based on a risk score summarizing 5 parameters. The proposed framework was validated using data from the bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) surveillance programme in 2013. A cumulative score was calculated per farm, including the following parameters; the maximum monthly ingoing contact chain (in 2012), the average number of animals per incoming movement, use of mixed alpine pastures and the number of weeks in 2012 a farm had movements registered. The final score for the farm depended on the distribution of the parameters. Different cut offs; 50, 90, 95 and 99%, were explored. The final scores ranged between 0 and 5. Validation of the scor...

Antimicrobial usage in 60 Swedish farrow-to-finish pig herds

Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2015

The aim of this study was to quantify antimicrobial consumption in Swedish farrow-to-finish pig h... more The aim of this study was to quantify antimicrobial consumption in Swedish farrow-to-finish pig herds. Sixty herds with 100 sows or more producing more than 500 fatteners per year participated in a study where data on antimicrobial consumption over a period of one year were collected. Data on antimicrobial use were collected by substance, administration route and per age category. Antimicrobial use was measured as defined daily doses and expressed as treatment incidence (TI) per 1000 pig-days at risk. The TIs for growing pigs varied between herds, from 1.6 to 116.0 with a median of 14.3. The highest TI was recorded for suckling piglets with a median of 54.7 (range; 1.6-367.9), while the median TIs for weaners, fatteners and adults were 6.2, 2.8 and 8.4, respectively (range; 0.0-260.5; 0.0-64.9; 0.0-45.0, respectively). The within herd TIs for the different age categories were not correlated. Individual treatment, mainly consisting of injectables, was the most common form of application except for weaners for which a majority (54.8%) of the treatments were group treatments. Benzylpenicillin was the most commonly applied substance except for weaners for which oral formulations of tylosin were most common. For fatteners, group treatments constituted 8.4% of the total TI. Group treatments with oral colistin were applied to suckling piglets in five herds. Group treatments were not applied to adult pigs. The TI for weaners was significantly lower for specific pathogen-free herds. The results show that the overall antimicrobial use in Swedish farrow-to-finish pig herds varied to a great extent, and the between-herd variation indicates that there is room for improvement of pig health. Targeting suckling piglets may be most beneficial, but further studies are required to identify specific focus areas which may reduce the need for antimicrobials in this particular age group.