Animal health, environment and food safety

There are numerous diseases affecting animal and human health. Diseases can be caused by several pathogens or poor animal breeding managment or inadequate and poor nutrition. Protection of human health is directly linked to the state of animal health. Research studies related to this area include detection and determination of causative agents of diseases, the incidence and their transmissibility and finding possible solutions for the prevention of diseases occuring in domestic and wild animals, including fish and bees. Our research work is also aimed at contemporary disseases such as transmissible spongioform encephalopathies, tick transmitted diseases, Born disease, Visna, caprine arthritis and encephalitis and other infectious and non-infectious encephalopathies. A special part of our interests also involves research of tumors. One part of this researh are tumors caused by oncogenic viruses. The other part of research involves tumors occurring in animal living in the same environment as humans or in wildlife. These tumors can be an indicator of possible transmission of causative agents between animal species or can be considered as an indicator or environmental pollution. Animal and human health and their immune system depend on qualitative and healthy nutrition. Therefore our research is also aimed at the study of the impact of unsaturated fatty acids in animal feed and the structure of pasture vegetation on several indicators of health, immune system and the occurrence of diseases in animals and humans. Many problems are also related to poor quality or even harmful food or feed, which may contain large quantities of naturally occurring antinutritive and toxic substances such as pesticides, radionuclides, heavy metals and drug residues. Feed may also be contaminated with saprophytic and pathogenic bacteria, fungi and their toxins. Studies will involve determination and finding adequate solutions of problems linked to the assurance of food safety and thus to human health. Within the frames of our research program are also studies of adequate environment assuring animal health along with the best production. Studies also involve possible ways of environmental protection against harmful impacts of intensive breeding systems and treatment of large number of animals on one place. Studies are linked to the determination of impact of drug residues (ecotoxicology) and the study of safe disposal of excretes and other forms of organic wastes produced in intensive animal breeding systems and food production (aerobic treatment of organic waste materials).

In the scope of research on the causative agents of some of the most common food-borne zoonoses, the use of typing methods, the reasonable planning of research and the premeditated sampling enabled us to step forward and approach the issues more complexly. On the one hand, a large selection of the typed bacterial isolates promised a good insight into the epidemiological situation regarding the food-borne pathogens, and on the other, by focusing on the specific issues, new insights on a global scale were gained. The latter have inevitably opened some new questions that will be answered by applying new methods, which will be introduced in the next period of the research program, and by cooperating with foreign research groups; this will contribute to the further development of science. Cooperation with some of the European laboratories has been established to not only contribute to the measures for the reduction of infection spreading and the disease control, by exchanging the typing data on some of the causative agents of the food-borne zoonoses, but also to contribute to the understanding of the epidemiology of disease on a global scale. The results of research directed toward contamination of poultry meat with campylobacters and their implementation into the poultry industry will have a direct impact on the safe-food assurance and public health protection. A new protocol for molecular diagnostics of the causative agent of paratuberculosis was developed, showing the best sensitivity for detection of DNA in complex samples in comparison to the other similar protocols from the literature. Detection of the presence of certain viruses, which were not found in Slovenia before, resulted in the introduction, optimization and validation of new diagnostic methods and the expansion of new fields in veterinary microbiology. By genotyping the causative agents of emerging diseases and by a multidisciplinary approach to their understanding, a contribution was made to the creation of a global picture of these diseases, which are affecting many countries also due to the changes of climatic conditions and representing a new scientific challenge. The results of the ecotoxicological studies of drugs and disinfecting agents are important both for the registration of new veterinary drugs and for the renewal of registration of the existing ones. The implemented analytical procedures for the determination of residues in the foods of animal origin and the monitoring of concentration of the veterinary drugs in contaminated samples will contribute to their safer use and thereby to better protection of the environment. Data on the impact of veterinary drugs on the survival, growth and reproduction of the non-target organisms in the environment will importantly contribute to understanding the effect of veterinary drugs on the ecosystems. The development of a method for simultaneous determination of 15 mycotoxins in the feed is an important contribution to a more effective and comprehensive identification of feed contamination with molds and their toxic metabolites; among the latter, many are carcinogenic, mutagenic and immunosuppressive, and can be found as residues in the foods of animal origin. In addition, the validation of the method for the determination of 26 elements in feed also leads to the progress in the field of animal nutrition hygiene, since the knowledge on the naturally present compounds and toxic elements and the possibility of their presence in the foods of animal origin is important for the assurance of human health.

Work within the research program represents a major contribution to the field of animal health, conservation of the environment and assuring the food safety in Slovenia. In the field of epidemiology of food-borne zoonoses, genotyping of the most common pathogens (campylobacters, salmonellae, listeriae) was employed to determine the sources of animal infection and routes of transmission in the food chain. Based on our findings, the thoroughness of disinfection at broiler farms before repopulation of animals, the adequacy of sampling for investigation on salmonellae in poultry flocks, and the changes/improvements of technological procedure for poultry slaughtering should be taken into consideration. Putting our discoveries into practice would impact the assurance of safe food and the health of consumers of the food of animal origin. In addition, the farm pigs were discovered as a possible source of MRSA for humans and the meat of domestic animals a source of ESBL - E. coli, which opens the issue on hygiene and control over the food of animal origin. For the first time at all, with a molecular-epidemiological method the transmission of infection by Listeria monocytogenes from animals to humans was described, by the case of cutaneous listeriosis, and listeriae were detected in the air of red meat slaughterhouses. In addition, the first case of MRSA with mecC gene was described in humans in Slovenia. All these achievements are of great importance for the global promotion of Slovenia. Our studies represent a basis for the preparation of measures that will enable more economical breeding and greater safety of the food of animal origin. In the field of emerging diseases, several new methods for detecting different pathogens (avian influenza viruses, West Nile virus, Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis, Clostridium difficile) and for discovering their reservoirs and routes of transmission were developed, which is important for ensuring the control over diseases that were not present in Slovenia in the past or their importance was negligible, but today, can markedly affect the animal health and cause considerable economic losses. In the field of epidemiology of viral diseases, the presence of certain viruses in different animal species studied was recorded for the first time in Slovenia. Several diagnostic methods for a wide range of viruses and their genotyping were developed, which enabled preparation of the preventive measures against their spread and the changes in the vaccination protocol. Extensive studies were conducted in the field of infections of the Carniola bee, which is, due to its autochthonism and prevalence, of great importance for the status and economy of Slovenia. In the field of environmental research and ecotoxicity of veterinary drugs and disinfectants, it was discovered, for example, that the storage of the manure markedly diminishes the risk factor due to lasalocid and monensin usage, and that the low and medium grazing intensity maintain the appropriate composition of the herbage on the Karst pastures. A method for cheaper selection aiming for the eradication of scrapie was developed. In addition, the more poorly studied field of the use of electro-oxidized water as a disinfectant that bares no ecological burden was also addressed, which ranks the Slovene research among the most topical at the present time, aimed at protecting the environment. In the field of research on food and feed, a variety of analytical procedures for determination of the residues in the foods of animal origin was introduced. It was discovered that the concentration of residues in foods (eggs, honey) remain unchanged for a long time and that the Slovenian shellfish farms are sewage-contaminated. Mycotoxins were studied and a procedure for determination of a large set of chemical elements in the grass and maize silages was introduced.