Animal virology

A doctor said to be "extremely ill" after being infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone was being treated in the United States on Nov. 16, while the world's most powerful economies vowed to "extinguish" the deadly epidemic.
      

The Health Ministry’s general secretary Christina Papanikolaou on Tuesday called on the directors of the country’s state hospitals to brief authorities regarding their level of readiness to deal with a potential Ebola infection.

A 33-year-old man from Galati (north-east of the Capital), who on Oct. 18 had returned home from Equatorial Guinea, a country hit by Ebola epidemic, was urgently taken to Bucharest Victor Babes Hospital of Infectious and Tropical Diseases on Tuesday.

The suspicious powdery substance that was sent to six consulates in Istanbul, leading to the hospitalization of more than 30 staff members, was a material similar to chalk dust, a Turkish official has said.

Health Ministry Undersecretary Eyüp Gümüş said Oct. 28 that the powder tested negative for biological and toxic agents.

Romania will carry out a bluetongue disease vaccine campaign in 2015, Agriculture Minister Daniel Constatin announced on Sunday at the public television TVR. He also mentioned short-term diplomatic efforts to convince foreign countries not to block imports from Romania.

A third suspected Coronavirus, also referred to as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), patient was identified in Turkey’s southern Adana province, health officials said Oct. 21.

Citing disease outbreaks, Russia’s food safety watchdog announced fresh restrictions on imports of livestock and beef from southern Europe on Wednesday – seen as a response to Western sanctions imposed over Moscow’s Ukraine policy.

Switzerland is to ban imports of live pigs and pork from several EU countries, including Bulgaria, in a bid to stop an African swine fever outbreak from reaching the country.

Imports from Bulgaria and Romania and some parts of Latvia and Croatia will be banned as of Wednesday, Swiss food safety authorities said on Tuesday.

The flocks of two livestock farmers in the Peloponnesian region of Arcadia were confirmed on Tuesday as having been infected by catarrhal fever, a viral disease that affects many ruminants and is also known as bluetongue (BTV).

The state's veterinary agency said that the two new cases come on top of a confirmed outbreak in Laconia, also in the Peloponnese.

Iran has recorded its first two cases of the deadly MERS virus, both among patients who had been in hospital with a pilgrim returning from Saudi Arabia, reports said Wednesday.
      
The two infected women are sisters and one is in a critical condition, transmissible diseases unit chief Mohammad Mehdi Gooya told the Fars news agency.