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Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis
Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus is a mosquito-borne viral pathogen that causes Venezuelan equine encephalitis or encephalomyelitis (VEE). VEE can affect all equine species, such as horses, donkeys, and zebras. After infection, equines may suddenly die or show progressive central nervous system disorders. Humans also can contract this disease. Healthy adults who become infected by the virus may experience flu-like symptoms, such as high fevers and headaches. People with weakened immune systems and the young and the elderly can become severely ill or die from this disease. The virus that causes VEE is transmitted primarily by mosquitoes that bite an infected animal and then bite and feed on another animal or human. The speed with which the disease spreads depends on the subtype of the VEE virus and the density of mosquito populations. Enzootic subtypes of VEE are diseases endemic to certain areas. Generally these serotypes do not spread to other localities. Enzootic subtype ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infectious Disease (medical Speciality)
Infectious diseases (ID), also known as infectiology, is a medical specialty dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of infections. An infectious diseases specialist's practice consists of managing nosocomial ( healthcare-acquired) infections or community-acquired infections. An ID specialist investigates and determines the cause of a disease (bacteria, virus, parasite, fungus or prions). Once the cause is known, an ID specialist can then run various tests to determine the best drug to treat the disease. While infectious diseases have always been around, the infectious disease specialty did not exist until the late 1900s after scientists and physicians in the 19th century paved the way with research on the sources of infectious disease and the development of vaccines. Scope Infectious diseases specialists typically serve as consultants to other physicians in cases of complex infections, and often manage patients with HIV/AIDS and other forms of immunodeficiency. Although many co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aedes Albopictus
''Aedes albopictus'' (synonym (taxonomy), synonym ''Stegomyia albopicta''), from the mosquito (Culicidae) family (biology), family, also known as the (Asian) tiger mosquito or forest mosquito, is a mosquito native to the tropical and Subtropics, subtropical areas of Southeast Asia. In the past few centuries, however, this species has spread to many countries through the transport of goods and international travel. It is characterized by the white bands on its legs and body. This mosquito has become a significant pest in many communities because it closely associates with humans (rather than living in wetlands), and typically flies and feeds in the daytime in addition to at dusk and dawn. The insect is called a tiger mosquito as it has stripes, as does a tiger. ''Ae. albopictus'' is an epidemiology, epidemiologically important Vector (epidemiology), vector for the Transmission (medicine), transmission of many viral pathogens, including the Yellow fever, yellow fever virus, d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Agents
Biological agents, also known as biological weapons or bioweapons, are pathogens used as weapons. In addition to these living or replicating pathogens, toxins and biotoxins are also included among the bio-agents. More than 1,200 different kinds of potentially weaponizable bio-agents have been described and studied to date. Some biological agents have the ability to adversely affect human health in a variety of ways, ranging from relatively mild allergic reactions to serious medical conditions, including serious injury, as well as serious or permanent disability or death. Many of these organisms are ubiquitous in the natural environment where they are found in water, soil, plants, or animals. Bio-agents may be amenable to "weaponization" to render them easier to deploy or disseminate. Genetic modification may enhance their incapacitating or lethal properties, or render them impervious to conventional treatments or preventives. Since many bio-agents reproduce rapidly and require ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Viral Diseases
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Animals form a clade, meaning that they arose from a single common ancestor. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described, of which around 1.05 million are insects, over 85,000 are molluscs, and around 65,000 are vertebrates. It has been estimated there are as many as 7.77 million animal species on Earth. Animal body lengths range from to . They have complex ecologies and interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as zoology, and the study of animal behaviour is known as ethology. The animal kingdom is divided into five major clades, namely Porifera, Ctenophora, Placozoa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horse Diseases
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, '' Eohippus'', into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE in Central Asia, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies ''caballus'' are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, which are horses that have never been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior. Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and poss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alphaviruses
''Alphavirus'' is a genus of RNA viruses, the sole genus in the ''Togaviridae'' family. Alphaviruses belong to group IV of the Baltimore classification of viruses, with a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA genome. There are 32 alphavirus species, which infect various vertebrates such as humans, rodents, fish, birds, and larger mammals such as horses, as well as invertebrates. Alphaviruses that can infect both vertebrates and arthropods are referred dual-host alphaviruses, while insect-specific alphaviruses such as Eilat virus and Yada yada virus are restricted to their competent arthropod vector. Transmission between species and their vertebrate hosts (including human) occurs mainly via mosquitoes, making the alphaviruses a member of the collection of arboviruses – or arthropod-borne viruses. Alphavirus particles are enveloped, have a 70 nm diameter, tend to be spherical (although slightly pleomorphic), and have a 40 nm isometric nucleocapsid. Genome The al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Organisation For Animal Health
The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), formerly the (OIE), is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1924, coordinating, supporting and promoting animal disease control. The primary objective of WOAH is to control epizootic diseases and prevent their spread. Further objectives include the sharing of transparent, scientific information; international solidarity; sanitary safety; and the promotion of veterinary services‚ food safety and animal welfare. WOAH is recognised by the World Trade Organization, World Trade Organisation (WTO) as an international reference for the safe trade of animals and animal products regarding risks due to animal diseases and zoonoses. WOAH is not a part of the United Nations (UN) system. Its autonomy is institutional and financial, and its own constitutional texts govern its activities. Since its first General Session held in Paris, the Organisation has carried out its work under the authority of a committee consisting of delegates ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Alibek
Kanatzhan "Kanat" Baizakovich Alibekov (born 1950), known as Kenneth "Ken" Alibek since 1992, is a Kazakh-American microbiologist, bioweaponeer, and biological warfare administrative management expert. He was the first deputy director of Biopreparat. During his career in Soviet bioweaponry development in the late 1970s and 1980s, Alibekov managed projects that included weaponizing glanders and Marburg hemorrhagic fever, and created Russia's first tularemia bomb. Jacobsen, Annie (2015), ''The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top Secret Military Research Agency''; New York: Little, Brown and Company, pg 293. His most prominent accomplishment was the creation of a new "battle strain" of anthrax, known as "Strain 836", later described by the ''Los Angeles Times'' as "the most virulent and vicious strain of anthrax known to man". In 1992, he defected to the United States; he has since become an American citizen and made his living as a biodefense consul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Biological Weapons Program
The Soviet Union covertly operated the world's largest, longest, and most sophisticated biological weapons program, thereby violating its obligations as a party to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972.Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R., & Kuhn, J. (2012). Conclusion. In ''The Soviet Biological Weapons Program'' (pp. 698-712). Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbscf.30 The Soviet program began in the 1920s and lasted until at least September 1992 but has possibly been continued by Russian Federation after that. By 1960, numerous military-purposed biological research facilities existed throughout the Soviet Union. Although the former USSR also signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Soviet authorities subsequently augmented their biowarfare programs. Over the course of its history, the Soviet program is known to have weaponized and stockpiled the following bio-ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Biological Weapons Program
The United States biological weapons program officially began in spring 1943 on orders from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Research continued following World War II as the U.S. built up a large stockpile of biological agents and weapons. Over the course of its 27-year history, the program weaponized and stockpiled seven bio-agents '' Bacillus anthracis'' ( anthrax), '' Francisella tularensis'' ( tularemia), ''Brucella'' spp (brucellosis), '' Coxiella burnetii'' ( Q-fever), Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Botulinum toxin (botulism), and Staphylococcal enterotoxin B. The US also pursued basic research on many more bio-agents. Throughout its history, the U.S. bioweapons program was secret. It was later revealed that laboratory and field testing (some of the latter using simulants on non-consenting individuals) had been common. The official policy of the United States was first to deter the use of bio-weapons against U.S. forces and secondarily to retaliate if deterrenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term ''Cold war (term), cold war'' is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and Nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, Economic sanctions, embargoes, and sports diplomacy. After the end of World War II in 1945, during which the US and USSR had been allies, the USSR installed satellite state, satellite governments in its occupied territories in Eastern Europe and N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
