Turner Rachel, Arsevska Elena, Brant Beth, Singleton David A, Newman Jenny, Noble Pj-M, Jones Philip H, Radford Alan D
Institute of Veterinary Science, University of Liverpool, Leahurst Campus, Chester High Road, Neston, CH64 7TE, UK.
Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool, Leahurst Campus, Chester High Road, Neston, CH64 7TE, UK.
Prev Vet Med. 2018 May 1;153:77-83. doi: 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2018.03.011. Epub 2018 Mar 14.
Blowfly strike is a devastating and often rapidly fatal disease in rabbits. In Great Britain (GB), Lucilia sericata is the primary causative species. Despite its severity, there has been minimal investigatory work into the disease in rabbits. Here we used text mining to screen electronic health records (EHRs) from a large sentinel network of 389 veterinary practices in GB between March 2014 and April 2017 for confirmed cases of blowfly strike in rabbits. Blowfly strike was identified in 243 of 42,226 rabbit consultations (0.6%), affecting 205 individual rabbits. The anatomical site of recorded blowfly strike lesions was overwhelmingly the perineal area (n = 109, 52.4%). Less commonly lesions were observed affecting other areas of the body (n = 9, 4.3%) and head (n = 8, 3.8%); in 83 consultations (39.9%), the affected area was not specified. Of the rabbits presenting with blowfly strike, 44.7% were recorded as being euthanized or died. A case control study was used to identify risk factors for blowfly strike in this population. Whilst sex and neuter status in isolation were not significantly associated with blowfly strike, entire female rabbits showed a 3.3 times greater odds of being a case than neutered female rabbits. Rabbits five years of age and over were more than 3.8 times likely to present for blowfly strike. For every 1 °C rise in environmental temperature between 4.67 °C and 17.68 °C, there was a 33% increase risk of blowfly strike, with cases peaking in July or August. Overall blowfly strike cases started earlier and peaked higher in the south of Great Britain. The most northerly latitude studied was at lower risk of blowfly strike than the most southerly (OR = 0.50, p < 0.001). There appeared to be no significant relationship between blowfly strike in rabbits and either the sheep density or rural and urban land coverage types. The results presented here can be used for targeted health messaging to reduce the impact of this deadly disease for rabbits. We propose that real-time temporal and spatial surveillance of the rabbit disease may also help inform sheep control, where the seasonal profile is very similar, and where routine surveillance data is also not available. Our results highlight the value of sentinel databases based on EHRs for research and surveillance.
兔蝇蛆病是一种对兔子具有毁灭性且往往迅速致命的疾病。在英国，丝光绿蝇是主要致病物种。尽管该病严重，但对兔蝇蛆病的调查研究工作却很少。在此，我们利用文本挖掘技术，对2014年3月至2017年4月间英国389家兽医诊所的大型哨点网络中的电子健康记录（EHRs）进行筛查，以确定兔蝇蛆病确诊病例。在42226次兔诊疗记录中，发现243例兔蝇蛆病（0.6%），涉及205只兔子。记录的蝇蛆病损伤解剖部位绝大多数是会阴区域（n = 109，52.4%）。较少见的是身体其他部位（n = 9，4.3%）和头部（n = 8，3.8%）出现损伤；在83次诊疗记录中（39.9%），未明确受影响区域。出现蝇蛆病的兔子中，44.7%被记录为实施安乐死或死亡。一项病例对照研究用于确定该群体中兔蝇蛆病的风险因素。虽然单独的性别和绝育状态与兔蝇蛆病无显著关联，但未绝育的雌兔成为病例的几率是绝育雌兔的3.3倍。5岁及以上的兔子出现蝇蛆病的可能性是其他兔子的3.8倍多。环境温度在4.67℃至17.68℃之间每升高1℃，兔蝇蛆病风险增加33%，病例在7月或8月达到峰值。总体而言，英国南部的兔蝇蛆病病例开始时间更早且峰值更高。研究的最北纬度地区兔蝇蛆病风险低于最南地区（OR = 0.50，p < 0.001）。兔子蝇蛆病与绵羊密度或农村和城市土地覆盖类型之间似乎没有显著关系。本文呈现的结果可用于针对性的健康宣传，以减少这种致命疾病对兔子的影响。我们建议，对兔病进行实时时空监测也可能有助于为绵羊防控提供信息，因为绵羊的季节性特征与之非常相似，且也没有常规监测数据。我们的结果凸显了基于电子健康记录的哨点数据库在研究和监测方面的价值。
