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As winters get warmer, ticks of several kinds are flourishing Deer ticks, known for transmitting Lyme disease, are moving farther north The longhorned tick, which came from overseas, has gained a foothold on the East Coast and begun moving west Gulf Coast ticks have...
When cats get sick with H5N1 avian influenza, they get severely ill, and up to 70% of affected cats will die. But little is known about how the virus spreads among cats, whether they serve as a vector to other animals or humans and how common infections are in community cat populations. The Cornell Feline Health Center (CFHC) in the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is starting an initiative to answer those questions, first through a pilot project in New York state. “This initiative reflects our commitment to addressing urgent public and animal health risks through translational research,” said CFHC director Dr. Bruce Kornreich, D.V.M. ’92, Ph.D. ’05…
Laura Goodman was close to finalizing a prototype of a new test that can detect any tick-borne disease. Unlike some current tests, it could provide results even before symptoms occur – and even for unknown diseases. That’s important, because ticks around the world can potentially transmit hundreds of disease agents, some of them not yet known, and they account for at least two-thirds of vector-borne disease in the U.S. When comparing confirmed diagnoses with insurance claims, it is estimated that there are 10 times more people infected than what available diagnostics show, according to the…
By 2030, Dhaka, Bangladesh is projected to experience dramatic increases in flooding and an average of 65 days per year of extreme heat. There are over 3,000 apparel factories in Bangladesh, whose workers and production are increasingly threatened by climate change, in the form of the high temperatures and extreme flooding. “Climate change is already negatively impacting worker livelihoods and industry sustainability,” said Sarosh Kuruvilla, the Andrew J. Nathanson Family Professor in Industrial and Labor Relations in the ILR School. “The global fashion industry urgently needs to adapt, to protect worker health and long-term earnings…
To satisfy the seafood needs of billions of people, offering them access to a more biodiverse array of fish creates opportunities to mix-and-match species to obtain better nutrition from smaller portions of fish. The right combination of certain species can provide up to 60% more nutrients than if someone ate the same quantity of even a highly nutritious species, according to a global analysis of fisheries published May 27 in Nature Sustainability. Wild fish harvests have stagnated for decades as many fisheries have been depleted by a growing global demand for seafood, which makes the need to maximize nutrition from limited fish stocks even more urgent…
Myanmar’s history of prolonged conflict has led to the forced displacement and resettlement of generations of refugees to the U.S., including upstate New York. Since relocating, these refugees’ relationship to fishing has likewise shifted, from angling for food and nutrition in rural regions of Myanmar to being a means for maintaining social connections, recreation, time outdoors and emotional well-being. Still, refugees in New York experience barriers to fishing, such as language disparities, lack of time, unfamiliar regulations and discrimination, described in a paper published in the June issue of Geoforum, released early online. The paper draws from interviews to examine the importance of access to environmental resources…
This May, the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine celebrated its newest group of graduates from their degree programs, sending off the newly minted veterinarians, scientists and public health professionals to the next step of their career journeys…The college celebrated the graduation of the Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) students, who stood before colleagues, classmates and loved ones to mark the milestone as Warnick greeted and congratulated them on their accomplishment. “It is wonderful to see the positive impact all of you as students are having through your projects, and your work after graduation,” he said…
“Researching the intersection of legal needs and healthcare disparities among immigrant farmworkers in Upstate New York deepened my understanding and support of interdisciplinary public health interventions.” -Anthony DiBenedetto, MPH ’25
Climate change is directly impacting the landscape of infectious diseases, especially mosquito-borne viruses. Guided by the needs of our partners, this project aims to 1) reconstruct a historical Zika outbreak (2015-2017) in Latin America and the Caribbean to understand the dynamics of disease spread in the region; 2) estimate evolutionary patterns of spread and the effective reproductive number for both Zika and Dengue; and 3) develop early warning signals for the next outbreaks of Zika and Dengue to understand how lags in spread and connectivity between countries affect disease dynamics, with a goal of developing nimble, regional joint interventions…
There are three primary objectives for this project: 1) determining the spread of the Lone Star tick (Ambylomma americanum) and Asian Longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) in New York State; 2) assessing tickborne pathogen prevalence in under-sampled areas of New York State; and 3) establishing an engaging citizen science program facilitating deeper understanding of ticks, tick-borne disease, and sensible precautions against ticks…
Fish and seafood can be a more environmentally friendly protein choice than other animal foods like beef, pork, and chicken. But you need to choose carefully. Not all fish are sustainable. And it’s more complicated than opting for certain species over others, because the sustainability and nutritional value of fish is affected by a host of factors. So, we asked the experts to school us in seafood. Here’s what they had to say…
If there was one thing we learned from COVID, it was the need for rapid, accurate, point-of-care testing to help contain the virus before it had spread silently to many others. It was years before we had these effective tools and could properly apply them in real time to real patients. Today, the same problem exists in animals for H5N1 bird flu, where the virus spreads through flocks before we know that even a single bird is infected…