The conservation of great apes faces many challenges, one of which is the threat of infectious disease outbreaks. Zoonotic transmission of Respiratory diseases from humans to wild great apes has recently been confirmed. Since Respiratory disease is one of the major causes of death in both gorillas and chimpanzees, this gives reason for major concern. Little is known about the risks of disease transmission from humans to great apes in natural environments, and there is a need for systematic risk evaluation. Researchers, conservation staff and tourists spend time in very close proximity of wild great apes, sometimes during long time periods, which poses a potential risk of disease spillover. However, the presence of researchers and tourists has been shown to decrease the risk of poaching, making the matter increasingly complex.

The purpose of the study was to investigate whether or not Icelandic horses are less severely affected in clinical symptoms of cough or decreased performance than other breeds of horses. A breed variation in chronic Respiratory disease severity was suspected based on clinical experience at the Institution for surgery & medicine, large animal, SLU Uppsala. A retrospective journal study of 17 Icelandic horses and 17 Swedish Standardbred horses with chronic problems with cough and/or decreased performance compared several measurements of disease severity. The clinical signs, physical examination and laboratory testing results compared were respiratory rate, abdominal breathing, lung auscultation, endoscopy results, broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL) results and the blood gases pO2 and pCO2. All parameters were available for all 34 individuals except for the blood gases, which were analysed, in only four Icelandic horses and four Swedish Standardbred horses. The only parameters that appeared different between the two groups were respiratory rate and pO2. The four Icelandic horses, which had blood gases analysed, had more severe hypoxemia.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic Respiratory disease with an estimated incidence of 3-6 cases per 100 000 inhabitants in Sweden. There is no cure for the disease, which inevitably leads to death. A similar disease has been found among terrier dogs, with an especially high prevalence in the West Highland White Terrier (WHWT). Dogs with pulmonary fibrosis become lethargic with exercise intolerance, and in some cases they develop cough and respiratory distress. This thesis gives a brief review of the field of pulmonary fibrosis and presents a method for analyzing surfactant proteins in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in the dog.

The Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) causes bronchiolitis and interstitial pneumonia, predominantly in calves, and is a major cause of bovine Respiratory disease worldwide. In humans, BRSV is paralleled by the closely related Human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV), an important cause of Respiratory disease, most severe in infants.The clinical signs and pathology during RSV infection is caused, not only by the direct effects of viral replication, but also by the response of the host immune system. The immunopathology of RSV has long obfuscated our understanding of the disease, and development of effective treatment and vaccines will be very difficult until greater knowledge is gained.One of the components of the immune system that has come into focus in RSV research the last few years, is the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). The TLR4 receptor is well known as the receptor that binds lipopolysaccaride (LPS), and initiates the host response to bacterial infection. Recently, it has been shown that the fusion protein of RSV also interacts with, and up-regulates the expression of, the TLR4 receptor.

The Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) causes bronchiolitis and interstitial pneumonia, predominantly in calves, and is a major cause of bovine Respiratory disease worldwide. In humans, BRSV is paralleled by the closely related Human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV), an important cause of Respiratory disease, most severe in infants.The clinical signs and pathology during RSV infection is caused, not only by the direct effects of viral replication, but also by the response of the host immune system. The immunopathology of RSV has long obfuscated our understanding of the disease, and development of effective treatment and vaccines will be very difficult until greater knowledge is gained.One of the components of the immune system that has come into focus in RSV research the last few years, is the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). The TLR4 receptor is well known as the receptor that binds lipopolysaccaride (LPS), and initiates the host response to bacterial infection. Recently, it has been shown that the fusion protein of RSV also interacts with, and up-regulates the expression of, the TLR4 receptor.

Respiratory disease with airway inflammation as main characteristic is common in the horse. It is a syndrome that is not yet fully understood. The etiology, pathogenesis and classification into different disease states are subjects for discussion and under continuous revision. Despite a number of modern techniques, the diagnostic procedure is challenging. There is no test considered to be gold standard when diagnosing these diseases.

Background;Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lung disease characterized by airway obstruction. Common signs of COPD are the slow process and shortness of breath on exertion. The most important treatment is to quit smoking. Most nurses, regardless of where they work, will meet these patients, often when the patients are having respiratory disorders. Aim;the aim of this study was to illuminate how patients with COPD describe the daily life based on how he/she experience and cope with the disease.

Respiratory infections are one of the major causes of disease in sheep throughout the world. In the beginning of 2008 the Swedish National Veterinary Institute and the Swedish Animal Health Service together started a project about respiratory infections in Swedish sheep. This study is an initial part of that project and the aim of this study was to investigate different sampling possibilities with focus on nasal swabs. This study is composed partly of a literature review on causative agents of respiratory infections in sheep and existing sampling methods, and partly of an experimental study comprising 56 sheep. These sheep were sampled with both an ordinary nasal swab and a guarded nasal swab. Before the start of this study there was to our knowledge no described method for sampling sheep with a guarded swab.

Since long, Sweden has had exceptionally low calf mortality compared to most other countries. The tradition has been to keep calves in individual pens. With increasing number of cows per herd there is now a larger interest in more efficient and economical group systems for housing calves. However it has been noticed that bigger herds have more health problems and higher calf mortality than smaller herds. The early signs of disease are harder to detect when the animals are not fed manually.

Dysfunction of the upper respiratory tract is a common cause of impaired performance and intolerance to exercise in racehorses and include several upper airway obstructions. The ones termed dynamic obstructions are primarily seen during physical exertion and affected horses often appear to be normal during endoscope examination at rest. The correlation between diagnoses made at rest respectively exercise is low, suggesting that an examination at rest alone is likely to be insufficient. The upper respiratory tract is exposed to great differences in pressure throughout the respiratory cycle; variations that are further altered during strenuous exercise and affect the rigidity of upper airway structures. In presence of great fluctuations in pressure, stability is achieved through coordinated and synchronous neuromuscular mechanisms. Due to nerve damage or anatomical abnormalities, these functions may be disrupted and further cause a dynamic collapse of the upper respiratory tract when pressure changes become too severe. The etiology behind the neuromuscular dysfunction is not yet fully understood.

Background: Vaccination is an important part in cats? welfare. It both helps to prevent the individual cat from catching a disease or lessen the symptoms of it, and protects the entire cat population from an epidemic. It is the cat owner who makes the decision to vaccinate or not. Understanding the cat owners? perspective regarding vaccination may improve communication between the owner and the veterinary nurse, which may lead to a higher vaccination rate among cats.

Background: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common hereditary disease that leads to an early death. Earlier CF was considered as a childhood disease but today the expected age is 50 years. CF affects all the epithelial cells in the body which makes mucus and other body fluids more viscous than normal. The thick mucus leads to among other things respiratory problems and infections of the lungs. Today there is no cure, only medicines that controls the symptoms.Aim: To describe parents experiences living with a child with CF.

In Uganda, small scale pig production plays a major role for households to earn a living and to secure their access to meat. Piglet mortality due to diar-rhoea-related dieseases is high. In an attempt to understand the underlying causes for this high mortality this study aims to investigate the role of trans-missible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) and is a part of a larger project con-ducted at Makerere university in Uganda. A complicating factor in this investigation is the porcine respiratory corona-virus (PRCV), a stabile mutant form of the TGE virus. The occurrence of this virus had shown to alter the impact of TGEV in e.g. Europe and North Amer-ica.

Leber´s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a disease affecting vision, is caused by several point mutations in mitochondrial DNA. Mutations leading to a defect NADH ubiquinone oxidoreductase protein will affect the respiratory chain and cause a disturbed ATP production. It is still unknown why this defect leads to the degeneration of retinal ganglion cells and cells in the opticus nerve as well as demyelination of axons in these areas. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA is an important tool in the diagnosis of the disease. At the present time analysis is based on cleavage by restriction enzymes, which only detects two of the most frequent mutations: m.3460G>A and m.11778G>A.

The complexity of the mast cell is becoming more prominent. From being the cell recognized just to contribute to allergic inflammation it is now also associated with wound healing, protection against tumor growth and in recognition and defense against a wide range of pathogens. The location of the mast cell in the barrier between the external and internal environment of the body enables the cell to quickly respond to invading bacteria, virus and parasites. Diarrhea due to Escherichia coli infection, listeriosis, toxoplasmosis, Newcastle disease and bovine respiratory syncytial virus are examples of mast cell activating diseases that can affect animals in, as well as outside, the agricultural sector. Additionally, ticks and tick-borne diseases are of concern.