Pasteurella multocida is a rare cause of bacterial meningitis, more frequently affecting humans at the extremes of age. We report a case of meningitis and bacteremia caused by P. multocida in a 67-year-old diabetic woman who was living with 10 cats. She didn't have any animal bites or scratches, but she reported kissing the pets in the mouth. The outcome was favorable following antimicrobial treatment. Although rarely encountered, P. multocida should be considered as a possible cause of meningitis, particularly when Gram-negative coccobacilli are revealed in the cerebrospinal fluid and a history of recent animal contact is present.

Rural, remote, and Indigenous communities often contend with free-roaming dog populations, increasing the risk of aggressive dog encounters, particularly dog bites and fatal dog attacks. This qualitative survey gathered a range of perspectives to ascertain the current veterinary services available in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities of northern Manitoba, as well as needs, barriers to, and considerations for future veterinary care provision. Survey results indicated terminology such as "overpopulation" and "rescue" need to be carefully considered as they may have negative connotations for communities. While veterinary services such as vaccination and deworming are important for public health, most programs were focused on sterilization. There was consensus that conversations must begin with individual communities to determine what services are needed and how to fulfil those needs. Perceived barriers include the remoteness of communities, finances, and culturally different views of veterinary medicine. Recommendations for future delivery of services include increased frequency and funding of current models, while others focused on different methods of delivery; all of which will require further discussions within the veterinary community and with other stakeholders.

Animal bites are a major source of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In the United States, the majority of animal bites come from domestic pets, including dogs, cats, and rodents. Camel bites, on the other hand, are exceedingly rare in the United States and are poorly described in the western medical literature. Special considerations must be made when camel bite injuries occur, as they may be therapeutically challenging. Although some clinical features of camel bites resemble those of the more common animal bite injuries, the camel's unique dentition and bite force must be taken into account when managing these wounds.

Animal bites are relatively common occurrences reaching about 4.5 millions of people every year. The main aggressor is the domesticated dog, responsible for around 90% of the patients, with children being the most affected, with 70% of the registered patients, while with adults that number is a lot lower (15%). Bites around the head and neck require special attention. Due to the presence of noble structures and the rich local vascularization, any wounds have been immediately addressed to stop bleeding and further complications. The present study shows a woman patient, victim of a dog bite in her face, where the dog is her own, a domesticated Weimaraner. The patient was attended to in the Unidade de Pronto Atendimento, the procedure was to first apply anesthesia, then clean up the wound, debris of borders, and the plane suturation. Two months after the surgery, the patient showed satisfactory healing, with no complaints about pain or esthetics. As final considerations, it has to be remembered that facial trauma has to be assessed and taken care of immediately, in a way that closing the wound in the first hours after the trauma increase the chances of obtaining a better esthetic as physiologic result for the patient, also preventing infections from the wound and external environment. Also, in the case of animal bites, it is important that the professional possess the knowledge to deal with each individual situation, employing the correct prophylactic vaccine and perform the correct notification.

Tularemia is an emerging zoonosis caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Francisella tularensis, which is able to infect a range of animal species and humans. Human infections occur through contact with animals, ingestion of food, insect bites or exposure to aerosols or water, and may lead to serious disease. F. tularensis may persist in aquatic reservoirs. In the Netherland, no human tularemia cases were notified for over 60 years until in 2011 an endemic patient was diagnosed, followed by 17 cases in the 6 years since. The re-emergence of tularemia could be caused by changes in reservoirs or transmission routes. We performed environmental surveillance of F. tularensis in surface waters in the Netherlands by using two approaches. Firstly, 339 samples were obtained from routine monitoring -not related to tularemia- at 127 locations that were visited between 1 and 8 times in 2015 and 2016. Secondly, sampling efforts were performed after reported tularemia cases (n = 8) among hares or humans in the period 2013-2017. F. tularensis DNA was detected at 17% of randomly selected surface water locations from different parts of the country. At most of these positive locations, DNA was not detected at each time point and levels were very low, but at two locations contamination was clearly higher. From 7 out of the 8 investigated tularemia cases, F. tularensis DNA was detected in at least one surface water sample collected after the case. By using a protocol tailored for amplification of low amounts of environmental DNA, 10 gene targets were sequenced. Presence of F. tularensis subspecies holarctica was confirmed in 4 samples, and in 2 of these, clades B.12 and B.6 were identified. This study shows that for tularemia, information regarding the spatial and temporal distribution of its causative agent could be derived from environmental surveillance of surface waters. Tracking a particular strain in the environment as source of infection is feasible and could be substantiated by genotyping, which was achieved in water samples with only low levels of F. tularemia present. These techniques allow the establishment of a link between tularemia cases and environmental samples without the need for cultivation.

Environmental conditions exert strong selection on animal behavior. We tested the hypothesis that the altered behavior of hosts due to parasitic manipulation is also subject to selection imposed by changes in environmental conditions over time. Our model system is ants manipulated by parasitic fungi to bite onto vegetation. We analyzed the correlation between forest type (tropical vs. temperate) and the substrate where the host bites (biting substrate: leaf vs. twigs), the time required for the fungi to reach reproductive maturity, and the phylogenetic relationship among specimens from tropical and temperate forests from different parts of the globe. We show that fungal development in temperate forests is longer than the period of time leaves are present and the ants are manipulated to bite twigs. When biting twigs, 90% of the dead ants we examined had their legs wrapped around twigs, which appears to provide better attachment to the plant. Ancestral state character reconstruction suggests that leaf biting is the ancestral trait and that twig biting is a convergent trait in temperate regions of the globe. These three lines of evidence suggest that changes in environmental conditions have shaped the manipulative behavior of the host by its parasite.