In the last couple years have you been having sinus trouble that just won’t quite?  It seems to get worse and then dies down only to come back?  I was reading:  Figuring Out Puzzling Animal Diseases on Malignant catarrhal fever (MCF)—found in bison, sheep, and cattle.  It would seem logical that if it is present in animals it could be zoonotic (can be transmitted to humans).

When entering sheep through the nasal route, the virus reaches the lung, where it replicates exclusively. Replication in sheep lung is required for the virus to change its cell tropism for the next stage—infecting lymphocytes, a type of immune cell. In this maintenance stage, the virus stays in the lymphocytes, circulating through the whole body with little replication. This type of infection is referred to as a “latent infection.” During the shedding stage, the virus reactivates from the infected lymphocytes, targets specific cells in the nasal turbinates to complete its replication, and is then shed through sheep nasal secretions.

“Amazingly, the virus replicated in turbinate cells is not capable of reinfecting turbinate cells because it changes its cell tropism again,” Li says.

“This type of presto-chango trickery has been very effective at keeping the virus in circulation. “It also explains why it has been impossible to grow in cell culture—it’s like trying to grow one organism in a cell culture designed for another organism,” Li says. With the knowledge of how the virus replicates in sheep, scientists can now begin to find the right cell types to grow the virus in cell culture.”

They also featured OPPV:

“Another ruminant disease being investigated by scientists at ADRU is ovine progressive pneumonia virus (OPPV), which causes mastitis, respiratory distress, swelling of the knees (arthritis), and wasting in infected sheep. One in two U.S. sheep of open-range flocks are infected with OPPV, and it is believed to be mainly transmitted between adult sheep through respiratory secretions. OPPV slowly erodes producers’ profits over the years by lowering average weaning weights of lambs and the average number of lambs produced.”

From the trenches,

Celeste