The Japan Society of Veterinary Epidemiology has been contributing to the promotion of epidemiological research and education in animal health and public health since its establishment in 1997. The Society has been publishing two issues of the ‘Journal of Veterinary Epidemiology’ every year and organizing at least two academic meetings every year since its establishment. The Society compiled a textbook of veterinary epidemiology that meets the university core curriculum adopted in 2012. Members of the Society contributed to providing useful information to policy makers in solving problems of various animal and zoonotic diseases. Among them are foot-and-mouth disease, BSE and highly pathogenic influenza, which had never occurred or occurred for the first time in many years in Japan in the early 2000s. The Society currently faces the challenge of how to increase the number of journal publications and promote international exchange.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has been known as an infectious disease of animals since a long time ago. This disease still threatens the sound development of livestock industry in the most infected countries. Once the disease invades to the disease free country, devastating economic loss are generated, as seen in the previous outbreaks in Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Netherland, Korea and Japan. Therefore, FMD has been serious restraints of international trade of animal and animal products for infected countries. Epidemiological researches have contributed to establishing better control and preventive measures. In particular, modeling studies become a powerful tool to evaluate different control strategies and support preparedness for the FMD outbreak. Collaboration with neighboring countries is a key to promote further progress on the epidemiological researches of transboundary animal diseases.

Rabies is a typical zoonosis directly transmitted to neural tissues by bites and shows acute progressive encephalomyelitis due to lyssaviruses. “One Health” is a key word for the control and prevention of rabies. Bats are the principal reservoir hosts for most lyssaviruses, but rabies lyssavirus (RABV) was successfully distributed among the meso-carnivores in the world represented by canids, raccoons, skunks, mongooses, ferret badgers and as much as only bats of the New World. In Japan rabies has not been reported from 1958, except three human imported cases of 1970 and 2006. The imported animal rabies from endemic countries was often reported in Europe and the United States, even after the eradication of the indigenous dog rabies. In Taiwan wildlife rabies of ferret badgers was suddenly reported in 2013 after canine rabies free for 52 years, and also a new lyssavirus was found from Japanese house bats in 2016 and 2017. These facts were a strong impact and urged reconsidering of a rabies free status in Japan. “The National Guideline for Rabies Control, 2001” was established in 2001 for the administrative measures and report system of rabies in the local government, and the action plan was also come out in 2013 as “The National Guideline on Rabies Countermeasures, 2013” for the risk management after found rabid animals in Japan. In reaction to the wildlife rabies in Taiwan “The Guideline for Animal Rabies Survey” was developed in 2014. In this article recent rabies in the world was overviewed focused on the etiological agents and the disease burden to the public health. The avail of rabies management with indispensable animal surveillance in Japan was also discussed on a view of veterinary epidemiology as well as a value of the medical and veterinary cooperation.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was first reported from the United Kingdom (UK) in 1986. Approximately 190,000 BSE cases were reported in the world, about 185,000 cases were detected in UK so far. BSE were transferred among cattle by Meat and Bone Meal with an inadequate heat treatment produced from Specified Risk Materials (SRM) of BSE cattle. Infectious agent is a proteinaceous infectious particles (prion), these are causative agents of BSE and also of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in human. 178 cases of vCJD cases were reported in the world since 1995. One case was also reported in Japan.

130 atypical BSE cases were reported in the world. Atypical BSE has a different western blot pattern from typical BSE. There are two patterns, High and Low types. Atypical BSE case was borne sporadically, and onset of BSE symptoms were detected older than typical BSE case. Two L type cases were detected in Japan in 16,100,000 cattle tested so far.

To prevent dissemination of BSE in the world, feed ban which is not fed SRM to cattle was introduced. 65 BSE cases were borne after real feed ban in the world.

No typical BSE case was reported in 2017, therefore, typical BSE case will be eradicated near future in the world.

牛白血病ウイルス（BLV）に感染した牛の大部分は，無症候感染（AL）であるが，一部のBLV感染牛は持続性リンパ球増多症やB細胞性のリンパ腫である地方病性牛白血病を引き起こす。BLVはAL牛においても乳量の低下や免疫力の低下などの生産性に影響を及ぼす慢性消耗性疾患であることが知られているが，肉用牛における影響は明らかではなかった。そこで本研究は，と畜牛におけるBLV感染症の影響を評価することを目的とした。2015年から2016年にかけて宮崎県内のと畜場2か所において，997頭のと畜牛の血液を採取した。BLVに対する抗体を検出するELISAを用いてBLV感染の有無を調べた。主に肥育牛が含まれる60か月齢以下の若齢グループと，繁殖母牛が含まれる60か月齢超の老齢グループに分けて，BLV抗体陽性牛と陰性牛の間の血液性状と枝肉重量を比較した。その結果，ELISAに陽性を示した割合は若齢グループと老齢グループそれぞれ22.8%と24.9%であった。若齢グループにおいて，ELISA陽性牛の方が陰性牛に比べて白血球数およびリンパ球数が有意に高かった。また老齢グループにおいてELISA陽性牛の方が陰性牛に比べて白血球数，好中球数，リンパ球数および単球数が有意に高かった。枝肉重量には有意差が見られなかった。本研究の結果は，BLV感染が肉用牛の宿主免疫応答に影響を与える重要な知見となり得る。