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A critical step for decreasing zoonotic disease threats is to have a good understanding of the associated risks. Hunters frequently handle potentially infected birds, so they are more at risk of being exposed to zoonotic avian pathogens, including avian influenza viruses (AIVs). The objective of the current study was to gain a better understanding of Cuban hunters' general hunting practices, focusing on their knowledge and risk perception on avian influenza. An anonymous and voluntary semi-structured questionnaire was designed and applied to 398 hunters. Multiple correspondence analyses found relationships with potential exposure of AIVs to people and domestic animals. The main associated risks factors identified were not taking the annual flu vaccine (60.1%) and not cleaning hunting knives (26.3%); Direct contact with water (32.1%), cleaning wild birds at home (33.2%); receiving assistance during bird cleaning (41.9%), keeping poultry at home (56.5%) and feeding domestic animals with wild bird leftovers (30.3%) were also identified as significant risk factors. The lack of use of some protective measures reported by hunters had no relationship with their awareness on avian influenza, which may imply a lack of such knowledge. The results evidenced that more effective risk communication strategies about the consequences of AIVs infecting human or other animals, and the importance of reducing such risks, are urgently needed., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Delgado-Hernández, Mugica, Acosta, Pérez, Montano, Abreu, Ayala, Percedo and Alfonso.)

This case study outlines the actions of Cuba's Veterinary Service, as part of the country's disaster risk reduction and management system, in response to Hurricane Irma. The phenomenon affected ten of Cuba's 15 provinces and caused significant damage in 53 of its municipalities (29.6%). During the response effort, the pre-established measures for the various phases (warning, alert and emergency) were deployed according to the disaster reduction plans for each level. In all provinces, animals were protected by moving them to safer locations, allowing for pre-established sanitary measures and technical assistance. Nonetheless, damage was incurred, mainly to the roofs of some animal housing. The following deaths were recorded: 210,150 poultry, 2,752 cattle (of which 73.8% were calves) and 866 pigs (of which 68% were young animals). In addition, 7% of the inventory of hives was damaged and 3.3% of hives were lost. Damage to infrastructure included: 466 poultry houses, 1,422 cattle houses, 431 pig houses, 1,200 wind pumps and 13 of the country's 17 feed concentrate plants. As no major damage was reported to the Veterinary Service's facilities (laboratories and offices), its viability was guaranteed at all times. Rapid damage assessment enabled priorities for rehabilitation and recovery actions to be set, with the result that, just three months after the hurricane had struck, 67% of the poultry houses and 33% of the pig houses had been restored. This article focuses on preparedness, response and lessons learned.

Classical Swine Fever (CSF) is an endemic disease in Cuba, and an eradication strategy by zones is planned by the Official Veterinary Service. The aim of this study was to identify high-risk areas of CSF and the risk factors associated with the disease occurrence in the Pinar del Río province, one of the prioritized areas in the eradication strategy. The outbreak occurrence at district level was analyzed through a 7-year period (2009 to 2015). A high-risk cluster (RR = 5.13, 95% CI 3.49-7.56) was detected during the last 2 years of the study period in the eastern half of the province, with 38 out of 97 districts included. The rate of CSF-affected holdings had a significant increase during 2014-2015 and seems to have occurred mainly in the high-risk cluster area. Swine population density by district (heads/km 2 ) and road length (km) by district were associated with the disease outbreak occurrence. These results provide new insights into the knowledge of the epidemiology of the disease in Cuban endemic conditions and can contribute to improving the control and the eradication strategy in this situation., (Copyright © 2020 Fonseca-Rodríguez, Centelles García, Alfonso Zamora, Ferrer-Miranda, Montano, Blanco, Gutiérrez, Calistri, Santoro and Percedo.)

Classical swine fever (CSF), caused by CSF virus (CSFV), is considered one of the most important infectious diseases with devasting consequences for the pig industry. Recent reports describe the emergence of new CSFV strains resulting from the action of positive selection pressure, due mainly to the bottleneck effect generated by ineffective vaccination. Even though a decrease in the genetic diversity of the positively selected CSFV strains has been observed by several research groups, there is little information about the effect of this selective force on the virulence degree, antigenicity and pathogenicity of this type of strains. Hence, the aim of the current study was to determine the effect of the positive selection pressure on these three parameters of CSFV strains, emerged as result of the bottleneck effects induced by improper vaccination in a CSF-endemic area. Moreover, the effect of the positively selected strains on the epidemiological surveillance system was assessed. By the combination of in vitro, in vivo and immunoinformatic approaches, we revealed that the action of the positive selection pressure induces a decrease in virulence and alteration in pathogenicity and antigenicity. However, we also noted that the evolutionary process of CSFV, especially in segregated microenvironments, could contribute to the gain-fitness event, restoring the highly virulent pattern of the circulating strains. Besides, we denoted that the presence of low virulent strains selected by bottleneck effect after inefficient vaccination can lead to a relevant challenge for the epidemiological surveillance of CSF, contributing to under-reports of the disease, favouring the perpetuation of the virus in the field. In this study, B-cell and CTL epitopes on the E2 3D-structure model were also identified. Thus, the current study provides novel and significant insights into variation in virulence, pathogenesis and antigenicity experienced by CSFV strains after the positive selection pressure effect., (© 2019 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.)

Although avian influenza (AI) virus of H5 and H7 subtypes has the potential to mutate to a highly pathogenic form and cause very high mortalities in some poultry species, most AI infections in poultry are due to low pathogenic AI (LPAI). Hence serological surveys, coupled with passive surveillance activities, are essential to detect sub-clinical infections by LPAI viruses, H5 and H7 subtypes. However the proper planning of an active surveillance system should be based on a careful estimation of its performance. Therefore, the sensitivity of the active surveillance system for AI in the western region of Cuba was assessed by a stochastic model quantifying the probability of revealing at least one animal infected by H5 or H7 subtype. The diagnostic sensitivity of the haemagglutination inhibition assay and different levels of within-flock prevalence (5%, 12% and 30%) were considered. The sensitivity of the surveillance system was then assessed under five different samples size scenarios: testing 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 animals in each flock. Poultry flock sites in the western region of Cuba with a size ranging from 10,000 to 335,000 birds were included in the study.

In Cuba, classical swine fever (CSF) has become an endemic disease with several outbreaks each year, despite the implemented vaccination program. Interestingly, a trend towards a milder presentation of the disease has been observed among the animals during the last years. This study aimed to assess positive selection pressure acting on partial E2 gene of CSF viruses to gain insights into the mechanisms governing virulence and the driving forces of classical swine fever virus (CSFV) evolution in swine populations under regular vaccination. Selection pressure analysis were performed to detect positive selection acting on a particular lineage as well as among sites of the E2-B/C-domain of CSFV nucleotide sequences, reported in a previous study and in the present work, several models, available in the CODEML module of PAML 4.3, were used. In addition, a representative Cuban CSF isolate was assessed in an experimental infection trial for their clinical virulence in order to expand the knowledge regarding CSF viruses circulating in pig populations. The viral genomes sequenced in this study were grouped in a defined cluster within the genotype 1.2, as it has been reported previously for Cuban CSF viruses. The selection pressure analysis didn't find evidence of positive selection (dN/dS of>1) along any branch. The positive selective pressure analysis estimated six new sites under positive selection on E2 partial gene analysed. Besides, the clinical manifestations of the CSF-disease were related mainly to a mild course of the illness. The high number of positively selected sites suggests that these changes could be associated to viral evasion of the host-immune response. These observations highlight a possible association between escape viral variants and the alterations observed in the virulence and pathogenesis of the virus. Therefore, while the vaccination programs have not led to a genotype change, alterations in virulence were suggested to arise., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is the essential etiological infectious agent of postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), which is considered one of the most economically important swine diseases worldwide. In this study, a comparison between methodologies based on classical phylogenetic trees and networks to infer the origin of PCV2 in Cuba was performed. In addition, the mechanisms supporting the genetic variability of Cuban PCV2 populations were investigated. A retrospective study, using pig sera collected in Cuba from 1993 to 2004, to evaluate the presence of PCV2 genome and PCV2-specific antibodies was also conducted and revealed a lack of evidence of PCV2 infection in Cuban swine from years 1993 to 2004. A total of 24 complete Cuban PCV2 sequences collected between 2005 and 2009 from different regions of the country were analyzed. Three classical methods of phylogenetic analysis, namely Neighbour-Joining, Maximum Parsimony and Bayesian Inference, as well as haplotype network construction, were used. Whereas the classical phylogenetic trees suggested different origins for the Cuban PCV2 strains, the haplotype network revealed a direct connection between all the Cuban sequences in agreement with the obtained epidemiological and viral sequence data. Moreover, the importation of pigs carried out in 2005 from the Quebec-Ontario region, Canada, seems to be the most likely origin of PCV2 in Cuba. Likewise, the genetic variability of Cuban PCV2 sequences was supported by geographic segregation and positive selection pressure with estimated rates of nucleotide substitution on the order of 3.12×10(-3) and 6.57×10(-3) substitutions/site/year, which are closer to those reported for RNA viruses., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

To obtain information about the porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) infection status of pigs in Cuba and the probable association of PCV2 with other porcine viruses, tissue samples collected from ill pigs were evaluated using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The PCR analysis showed that 67.7% of the samples (23/34) from seven swine herds of six different geographic regions were detected to be positive for PCV2. Ten of the 23 PCV2 positive samples (43.5%) shown a concurrent infection with porcine parvovirus (PPV) and 17 of 23 PCV2 positive samples (73.9%) exhibited a concomitant infection with classical swine fever virus (CSFV). This study is the first report of PCV2 infecting pigs with different clinical conditions in Cuban swine herds and provides evidence of PCV2 co-infection with PPV and CSFV in the field., (Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

A serum bank for the surveillance of exotic diseases was designed in accordance with the provisions of the Information and Epizootiological Surveillance System in the Republic of Cuba. Sera were collected from imported animals, from sentinel animals used for monitoring target areas at biological risk and from animals located in high animal-density areas. Methodologies were developed for the selection and characterisation of target areas at biological risk and sentinel animal points, the collection and storage of serum samples and the management of the national animal serum bank. After developing the methodologies, the serum bank was established throughout Cuba. The national animal serum bank operates using a quality management system based on the recommendations of the World Organisation for Animal Health and the International Organization for Standardization.