The African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is a large wild bovid which until recently ranged across all but the driest parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and their local range being limited to about 20 km from surface water. They are of high ecological value due to their important role as bulk feeders in the grazing hierarchy. They also have high economic value, because they are one of the sought after 'Big Five' in the eco-tourism industry. In Africa, buffaloes have been recognised for some time as an important role player in the maintenance and transmission of a variety of economically important livestock diseases at the wildlife and/or livestock interface. These include African strains of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), Corridor disease (theileriosis), bovine tuberculosis and bovine brucellosis. For a number of other diseases of veterinary importance, African buffaloes may also serve as amplifier or incidental host, whereby infection with the causative pathogens may cause severe clinical signs such as death or abortion as in the case of anthrax and Rift Valley fever, or remain mild or subclinical for example heartwater. The long term health implications of most of those infections on the buffalo at a population level is usually limited, and they do not pose a threat on the population's survival. Because of their ability to harbour and transmit important diseases to livestock, their sustainable future in ecotourism, trade and transfrontier conservation projects become complex and costly and reliable diagnostic tools are required to monitor these infections in buffalo populations.

Africa has the highest burden of infectious diseases in the world and yet the least capacity for its risk management. It has therefore become increasingly important to search for 'fit-for-purpose' approaches to infectious disease surveillance and thereby targeted disease control. The fact that the majority of human infectious diseases are originally of animal origin means we have to consider One Health (OH) approaches which require inter-sectoral collaboration for custom-made infectious disease surveillance in the endemic settings of Africa. A baseline survey was conducted to assess the current status and performance of human and animal health surveillance systems and subsequently a strategy towards OH surveillance system was developed. The strategy focused on assessing the combination of participatory epidemiological approaches and the deployment of mobile technologies to enhance the effectiveness of disease alerts and surveillance at the point of occurrence, which often lies in remote areas. We selected three study sites, namely the Ngorongoro, Kagera River basin and Zambezi River basin ecosystems. We have piloted and introduced the next-generation Android mobile phones running the EpiCollect application developed by Imperial College to aid geo-spatial and clinical data capture and transmission of this data from the field to the remote Information Technology (IT) servers at the research hubs for storage, analysis, feedback and reporting. We expect that the combination of participatory epidemiology and technology will significantly improve OH disease surveillance in southern Africa.

Using foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) as an example, this review describes new tools that can be used to detect and characterise livestock diseases. In recent years, molecular tests that can detect and characterise pathogens in a diverse range of sample types have revolutionised laboratory diagnostics. In addition to use in centralised laboratories, there are opportunities to locate diagnostic technologies close to the animals with suspected clinical signs. Work in this area has developed simple-to-use lateral-flow devices for the detection of FMD virus (FMDV), as well as new hardware platforms to allow molecular testing to be deployed into the field for use by non-specialists. Once FMDV has been detected, nucleotide sequencing is used to compare field strains with reference viruses. Transboundary movements of FMDV are routinely monitored using VP1 sequence data, while higher resolution transmission trees (at the farm-to-farm level) can be reconstructed using full-genome sequencing approaches. New technologies such as next-generation sequencing technologies are now being applied to dissect the viral sequence populations that exist within single samples. The driving force for the use of these technologies has largely been influenced by the priorities of developed countries with FMD-free (without vaccination) status. However, it is important to recognise that these approaches also show considerable promise for use in countries where FMD is endemic, although further modifications (such as sample archiving and strain and serotype characterisation) may be required to tailor these tests for use in these regions. Access to these new diagnostic and sequencing technologies in sub-Saharan Africa have the potential to provide novel insights into FMD epidemiology and will impact upon improved strategies for disease control. Effective control of infectious diseases is reliant upon accurate diagnosis of clinical cases using laboratory tests, together with an understanding of factors that impact upon the epidemiology of the infectious agent. A wide range of new diagnostic tools and nucleotide sequencing methods are used by international reference laboratories to detect and characterise the agents causing outbreaks of infectious diseases. In the past, high costs (initial capital expenses, as well as day-to-day maintenance and running costs) and complexity of the protocols used to perform some of these tests have limited the use of these methods in smaller laboratories. However, simpler and more cost-effective formats are now being developed that offer the prospect that these technologies will be even more widely deployed into laboratories particularly those in developing regions of the world such as sub-Saharan Africa.

A survey amongst sheep and goat producers and veterinarians was undertaken to collect epidemiological data on orf in South Africa. Previous epidemiological studies on the presence of the disease in the country have not been documented and this report is the first descriptive epidemiological study of orf in South Africa. A seven-month investigation, realised by direct and indirect interviews and field observation, enabled us to outline incidence and risk factors of this disease and to better understand how the local farmers in rural areas relate to it. The results may contribute to better management of the disease in rural areas. By means of molecular analyses the phylogenetic relationships between field isolates from different areas have been identified. The findings gave a first important contribution to the general assessment of the economic impact of orf virus infections and the extent of the risk to human health.

Freshwater snails are known to serve as first intermediate hosts for various parasitic diseases such as schistosomosis, amphistomosis and fasciolosis. Two freshwater snail species, <em>Lymnaea natalensis</em>, Krauss 1848 and <em>Bulinus tropicus</em>, Krauss 1848 were sampled from five localities in Gauteng and one locality in the North West Province from 2007 to 2010. These snails were collected in order to study their cercarial sheddings. They were found to be infected with three different types of strigea cercariae, of which the morphology was studied using standard light and scanning electron microscopy techniques.

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of cryopreservation at approximately -196 °C in liquid nitrogen (N) and freezing at approximately -20 °C in a freezer, on the viability and survival of eight different mastitogenic bacteria inoculated in milk. Bacteria were frozen at approximately -20 °C in a freezer and cryopreserved at approximately -196 °C in liquid nitrogen. An effective preservation method was needed for follow-up samples from cows identified in the South African National Milk Recording Scheme (NMRS) with somatic cell counts above 250 000 cells/mL milk. The organisation responsible for sample collection of the NMRS milk samples also provides producers with liquid nitrogen for their semen flasks at the collection sites. This existing mode of storage and transport could therefore be utilised. Ten samples of each organism were thawed and cultured bi-weekly until week 18 for both temperature treatments. An additional sampling was performed at week 30 for samples frozen at approximately -20 °C. Freezing and cryopreservation did not impair subsequent isolation of Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Streptococcus uberis, Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus (STH) (phage type lytic group III) or Sta. aureus (STA) (phage typed, other than lytic group III). Survival was indicated by the isolation of bacteria from samples, and viability by the strength of growth of the bacteria isolated. The survival of Streptococcus agalactiae decreased after week 12 and Escherichia coli after week 16 of freezing, but both organisms survived under cryogenic preservation until week 18. Coagulase-negative staphylococci survived until week 18 for both freezing and cryogenic preservation. Both storage methods could thus contribute to the improvement of a pro-active approach towards udder health management in South African dairy herds.

Newcastle disease (ND) is regarded as a highly contagious and economically important disease in poultry and has a worldwide distribution. Viral determinants for Newcastle disease virus (NDV) virulence are not completely understood and viruses of different pathotypes can be found at live-bird markets in different geographical areas. The prevalence of Newcastle disease in village poultry in Mozambique is not well documented and strains of NDV involved in yearly outbreaks are unknown. The fusion (F) protein is an important determinant of pathogenicity of the virus and is used commonly for phylogenetic analysis. Newcastle disease viruses from various geographical regions of Mozambique were sequenced and compared genetically to published sequences obtained from GenBank. Samples were collected in three different areas of Mozambique and NDV was isolated by infection of embryonated chicken eggs. Sequence analysis of the F-protein encoding gene was used to classify 28 isolates from Mozambique into genotypes and compare these genotypes phylogenetically with existing genotypes found in GenBank. The isolates obtained from Mozambique grouped mainly into two clades. In the first clade, 12 isolates grouped together with sequences of isolates representing genotypes from Mozambique that were previously described. In the second clade, 16 isolates group together with sequences obtained from GenBank originating from Australia, China, South Africa and the USA. Eleven of these isolates showed a high similarity with sequences from South Africa. The number of samples sequenced (<em>n</em> = 28), as well as the relatively small geographical collection area used in this study, are too small to be a representation of the circulating viruses in Mozambique in 2005. Viruses characterised in this study belonged to lineage 5b, a similar finding of a previous study 10 years ago. From this data, it merely can be concluded that no new introduction of the virus occurred from 1995 to 2005 in Mozambique.

Aquatic systems are affected by a variety of anthropogenic activities that decrease water quality through the introduction of organic and inorganic pollutants. To investigate the relationship between fish parasite communities and water quality, metazoan parasites were examined in 140 specimens of the Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) sampled in three lakes in the Limpopo Province, namely the Luphephe–Nwanedi Dams (regarded as unpolluted), the Flag Boshielo Dam (regarded as moderately polluted) and a return water dam on a mine site (regarded as polluted). The monogenean parasites Cichlidogyrus halli, digenean larval stages of Clinostomum and Diplostomum spp. and a gryporynchid cestode were found in or on O. mossambicus in all the sampled sites. The distribution of monogeneans (Cichlidogyrus sclerosus, Cichlidogyrus dossoui, Cichlidogyrus tilapiae, Scutogyrus longicornis and three Enterogyrus spp.), metacercarial stages of two digeneans (Neascus and Acanthostomum spp.) and nematodes (an unidentified nematode, Contracaecum sp., Paracamallanus cyathopharynx and Procamallanus laevionchus) was limited to the unpolluted and moderately polluted lakes. Larval stages of Diplostomum sp. were present in O. mossambicus collected from the unpolluted and polluted sites. The variability of the calculated infection indices (prevalence, mean abundance and mean intensity) and the parameters of species richness and diversity suggest that the structure of parasite communities are affected by the pollution levels of the water. The unpolluted reference site had the highest species richness and the highest overall parasite abundance values.

The risk to consumers of antimicrobial residues in table eggs produced in Khartoum State, Sudan, was studied. All producing layer farms (n = 175) in the state were sampled in April, June and August 2008. A total of 933 eggs from 335 layer houses were screened for antimicrobial residues by using the growth inhibition of Geobacillus stearothermophilus var. calidolactis in-house test. A high proportion of layer farms (72% in April, 61% in June and 66% in August) and layer houses (63% April, 59% in June and 61% in August) were found to have antimicrobial residues, with no significant difference in prevalence (p = 0.57) between study periods. The study showed that the consumer was at constant risk of exposure to antimicrobial residues in table eggs. The paper discusses reasons for the high prevalence of antimicrobial residues in Sudanese eggs and its implications, and makes recommendations to address this important public health problem.

This study was aimed at determining the prevalence of <em>Cryptosporidium</em> spp. and <em>Giardia duodenalis</em> in pigs which were being raised in intensive management systems. Faecal samples were collected from pigs of all age groups from three different piggery units. Samples were collected directly from the rectum for piglets and weaners and from the floor within 2 min – 5 min of excretion for sows and boars. At the time of collection, faecal consistency was noted as being normal, pasty or diarrhoeic. Samples were analysed further using the Merifluor® <em>Cryptosporidium</em>/<em>Giardia</em> immunofluorescence assay. All piggeries had at least one pig infected with either parasite. From a total 217 samples collected, 96 (44.2%; confidence interval [CI] = 37.6% – 50.9%) were positive for <em>Cryptosporidium</em> spp., whilst 26 (12%; CI = 7.6% – 16.3%) had <em>G. duodenalis</em> parasites. Of all the pigs, 6.9% (15/217) harboured both parasites. With regard to <em>Cryptosporidium</em> spp. infection, statistically significant differences were observed amongst the three units (<em>p</em> = 0.001), whereas no significant differences were observed for <em>G. duodenalis</em> infection (<em>p</em> = 0.13). Prevalence was higher in weaners as compared to other pig classes for both parasites, with significant differences being observed for <em>G. duodenalis</em> infection (<em>p</em> = 0.013). There was, however, no difference in infection between male and female pigs for both parasites. Furthermore, most infections were asymptomatic. From the study results it was clear that <em>Cryptosporidium</em> spp. and <em>G. duodenalis</em> infections were prevalent amongst pigs in the piggeries evaluated and, as such, may act as a source of infection for persons who come into contact with them.