Please welcome two guest speakers from the Koret-School of Veterinary Medicine, Jerusalem.
Speaker: Dr. Idit Gunther:
Title: Free-Roaming Cats – Demographics, Nuisances, Welfare and Control
Date: June 1, 11: a.m. to 12 noon
Location: Room 1715 LLC
Speaker: Dr. Ehud (Udi) Elnekave:
Title: Risk factors and dynamics of Foot and Mouth Disease in Israel - a window to the East Mediterranean
Date: June 1, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Location: Room 1715 LLC
Details (speakers and presentations):
Idit Gunther (DVM) is studying free-roaming cat populations during the last decade. She published several articles on free-roaming cats and is currently teaching welfare of small animals in the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, in the Hebrew University. She is currently enrolled in a PhD program at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem with advisors Drs. Eyal Klement and Tal Raz. Free-roaming cats are a growing concern worldwide. Currently, there is only little knowledge regarding their population dynamics, the burden they might cause and their welfare. In addition, the effectiveness of non-lethal methods for controlling their population is yet to be established. We investigate these issues by using controlled and observational studies of cat populations in the urban settings in Israel.
Ehud (Udi) Elnekave is a DVM, who studies the epidemiology of FMD in Israel in the last 4 years as part of a PhD thesis, advised by Professor Eyal Klement. During his PhD, Udi has published several articles regarding vaccines effectiveness, risk factors to FMD and evaluation of tools for disease detection. Foot and Mouth Disease is a highly infectious disease with major economic consequences and therefore a worldwide concern. Like in many countries in the East Mediterranean region, Israel is frequently threatened by incursions of FMD from the surrounding countries and despite the control measures applied, outbreaks reoccur almost every year. Therefore, knowledge gathered on the Israeli situation could be beneficial to the entire East Mediterranean region as well as to other countries facing repeated outbreaks of FMD. Our research sheds light on the epidemiology of FMD in endemic countries, the effectiveness of different vaccination methods and risk factors for FMD morbidity and provides applicable data for improvement of surveillance and control of the disease.
Please contact Olaf Berke (oberke@uoguelph.ca) if you like to arrange for a meeting with the speakers.