Growing demand for ejiao – gelatin produced from donkey skin and used in Traditional Chinese Medicine – is putting global donkey populations at risk and threatening the livelihoods of millions of people that depend on them in lower and middle-income countries. Hundreds of thousands of donkeys are slaughtered for their skins and exported annually, mostly from Africa to China. However, the trade is spreading across the globe, including Brazil. This article highlights the appalling welfare conditions for donkeys caught up in both the legal and illegal trade, as well as the effects on vulnerable people and the potential for disease spread and hazards to human health.

It is very important to monitor the infection of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae as a potential threat to the sheep industry. Southern Xinjiang is a major sheep breeding base in China, however, there is no relevant information concerning the infection of the region’s ovine stock with this bacteria at present. This study aimed to address this knowledge gap.

H7N9 avian influenza has broken out in Chinese poultry 10 times since 2013 and impacted the industry severely. Although the epidemic is currently under control, there is still a latent threat. Epidemiological surveillance data for non-human H7N9 avian influenza from April 2013 to April 2020 were used to analyse the regional distribution and spatial correlations of positivity rates in different months and years and before and after comprehensive immunisation. In addition, positivity rate monitoring data were disaggregated into a low-frequency and a high-frequency trend sequence by wavelet packet decomposition (WPD). The particle swarm optimisation algorithm was adopted to optimise the least squares support-vector machine (LS-SVM) model parameters to predict the low-frequency trend sequence, and the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model was used to predict the high-frequency one. Ultimately, an LS-SVM-ARIMA combined model based on WPD was constructed. The virus positivity rate was the highest in late spring and early summer, and overall it fell significantly after comprehensive immunisation. Except for the year 2015 and the single month of December from 2013 to 2020, there was no significant spatiotemporal clustering in cumulative non-human H7N9 avian influenza virus detections. Compared with the ARIMA and LS-SVM models, the LS-SVM-ARIMA combined model based on WPD had the highest prediction accuracy. The mean absolute and root mean square errors were 2.4% and 2.0%, respectively. Low error measures prove the validity of this new prediction method and the combined model could be used for inference of future H7N9 avian influenza virus cases. Live poultry markets should be closed in late spring and early summer, and comprehensive H7N9 immunisation continued.

Derzsy’s disease and Muscovy duck parvovirus disease have become common diseases in waterfowl culture in the world and their potential to cause harm has risen. The causative agents are goose parvovirus (GPV) and Muscovy duck parvovirus (MDPV), which can provoke similar clinical symptoms and high mortality and morbidity rates. In recent years, duck short beak and dwarfism syndrome has been prevalent in the Cherry Valley duck population in eastern China. It is characterised by the physical signs for which it is named. Although the mortality rate is low, it causes stunting and weight loss, which have caused serious economic losses to the waterfowl industry. The virus that causes this disease was named novel goose parvovirus (NGPV). This article summarises the latest research on the genetic relationships of the three parvoviruses, and reviews the aetiology, epidemiology, and necropsy characteristics in infected ducks, in order to facilitate further study.

The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and characteristics of antimicrobial-resistant Enterococcus faecalis and E. faecium isolated from the oral cavities of captive giant pandas in China. The virulence-associated determinant and antimicrobial resistance genes were detected and antimicrobial susceptibility tests were performed on 54 strains of each bacterium. All isolates showed 100% multidrug resistance. E. faecalis isolates showed a higher percentage of strains resistant to gentamicin (48.1%), vancomycin (55.6%), linezolid (100%), and streptomycin (33.3%) than E. faecium isolates. The resistance genes of Enterococcus spp. were present to highly varying extents according to antibiotic type, their presence breaking down for E. faecalis and E. faecium respectively as aac(6')/aph(2″) 5.56% and 5.56%; aph(3')-Ⅲ 0% and 14.81%; ant(6)-I 0% and 3.7%; ant(4')-Ia 0% and 64.81%; tetL 20.37% and 100%; vanA 92.59% and 46.3%; vanB 0% and 0%; cfr 0% and 90.74%; optrA 96.3% and 3.7%; blaZ 0% and 1.85%; blaTEM 0% and 0%; tetA 20.37% and 0%; tetC 24.07% and 100%; tetM 0% and 0%; ermA 12.96% and 100%; ermB 5.56% and 3.7%; and ermC 0% and 1.85%.Virulence-associated determinants were detected in this research, which typically include efaA, gelE, asa1, ace, cylA, esp and hyl; however, the latter three were not detected. High proportions of the isolates carried the efaA, gelE, asa1, and ace genes. Respectively for E. faecalis and E. faecium their detection was efaA 98.1% and 85.2%; gelE 98.1% and 87%; asa1 92.6% and 87%; and ace 87% and 85.2%. This is the first study on the potential disease risk and antimicrobial-resistant characteristics of E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates in giant panda oral cavities. The results of this study show that the antimicrobial resistance rate of Enterococcus spp. isolated from the oral cavity of captive pandas is very high, and thus needs to be monitored.

Recombinant bovine interferon alpha (rBoIFN-α) has been demonstrated to have antiviral activity. However, no conduct of acute or chronic toxicity tests has been reported. Specific pathogen-free Sprague Dawley rats were administered doses at different concentrations through intraperitoneal or intravenous injection. After the administration (single for an acute toxicity test over 14 days or daily for a sub-chronic toxicity test over 30 days), the rats’ behaviour and other indicators and the degree of toxic reaction were continuously monitored. Blood was collected for haematological and serum biochemical examinations. At the end of the experiments, the rats were sacrificed for necropsy and histopathological tissue analysis. The external performance, behaviour characteristics, and changes in body temperature and body weight of the rats in each subgroup were comparable to the normal control subgroup. Except for a few cases, there were no lesions in the viscera’s pathological structures, and the blood parameters and biochemical indicators were not noticeably different from those of the control subgroup. This study suggests that rBoIFN-α seems to be safe for rats, and its use may foster the development of the cattle industry in China by protecting livestock health.

Since June 2017, several outbreaks of a Seneca Valley virus (SVV) USA/GBI29/2015-like strain have emerged in pigs in China. In our study, we successfully isolated the SVV strain CH-GDZQ-2018, confirmed by immunofluorescence and Western blot assays. Phylogenetic and recombinant analyses showed that the USA/GBI29/2015-like CH-GDZQ-2018 strain was the result of recombination between epidemic strains local to Guangdong, showing that SVV has undergone evolution in China.