One Health Team Presents at Diseases in Nature (DIN) Conference, in Galveston, Texas, May 20-22, 2015
The 65th Annual James Steel Conference on Diseases in Nature Transmissible to Man (DIN) took place May 20-22, 2015 at the San Luis Resort, Spa and Conference Center in Galveston, Texas. Texas A&M University was well represented, with more than 25 faculty, staff, and students who attended and presented.
The Texas A&M One Health Program team presented two papers (a platform presentation and poster).
The oral presentation, titled “One Healthy Village at a Time: Improving One Health in Nicaragua and Haiti,” was presented by Rosina “Tammi” Krecek, with co-presenters Merrideth Holub, Cheryl A. Scott, Ruth L. Bush, Thomas Jeffreys, Ashton Richardson, Christina Babu, Ariel Loredo, Sylvia Tangney, and Analise Rivero.
The poster, titled “Spreading the Message: Communicating the Texas A&M; One Health Program,” was presented by Rosina “Tammi” Krecek, with co-presenters Mike Chaddock, Audra Wilburn, Ruth L. Bush, Seth J. Sullivan, and Eleanor M. Green. Several professional and graduate students participating in One Health educational and research programs were co-presenters and attended the conference.
Dr. Wesley Bissett, Dr. Deb Zoran, and I were part of an Ebola panel entitled “Quarantine of a Dog Exposed to a Human Case of Ebola Virus Disease.” The panel included representatives from many of the organizations involved in managing the Ebola, such as the CDC, Texas Animal Health Commission, Dallas Animal Services, and the CVM. We discussed the timeline of the response, the steps we took to insure our team’s safety, the collaborative efforts of numerous experts in crisis management and statewide agencies, and the follow-up after the fact.
DIN Conference Presentations
Oral Presentation were presented by:
- Dr. Kevin Cummings, VIBS, on “The epidemiology of fecal Salmonella shedding among feral pigs throughout Texas”
- Dr. Sarah Hamer, VIBS, on “Shelter trends in zoonotic, vector-borne, and parasitic diseases across Texas”
- Dr. Tammi Krecek, Interim Asst. Dean of One Health, on “One Healthy Village at a Time: Improving One Health in Nicaragua and Haiti”
- Dr. Sara Lawhon, VTPB, on “Antimicrobial resistance in Staphylococcus pseudintermedius”
- Dr. Artem Rogovskyy, VTPB, on “Evaluation of the importance of VlsE antigenic variation for the enzootic cycle of Borrelia burgdorferi”
- Dr. Ashley Saunders, SACS, on “Cardia manifestations of Chagas disease and clinical presentation in dogs”
Participants in a panel presentation and discussion on “Quarantine of a dog exposed to a human case of Ebola Virus disease” included:
- Dr. Deb Zoran, VSCS
- Dr. Wesley Bissett, VLCS
- Dr. Eleanor Green, Dean
Poster presentations included:
- Lisa Auckland “Migratory birds facilitate invasions of exotic ticks and tick-borne pathogens into the United States”
- Dr. Carolyn Hodo “The role of bats in the eco-epidemiology of Chagas disease in the U.S.”
- Dr. Tammi Krecek “Spreading the message and communicating the Texas A&M One Health Program”
