Treinta años del control del doping en los hipódromos españoles: 1983-2014

El deseo de lograr la victoria con el menor esfuerzo o la garantía de la derrota segura del rival, es un sentimiento tan antiguo como la historia del deporte, para conseguirlo a lo largo del tiempo los métodos, las formas, las sustancias para alterar el rendimiento físico han evolucionado, aunque la intención se mantiene de forma invariable. En nuestros días el doping está presente en la mayoría de los deportes y las carreras de caballos no son una excepción. Por esta razón con el fin de salvaguardar el bienestar animal, la limpieza del deporte y la protección del juego en los hipódromos españoles se realiza “el control del doping”, se practica a los caballos PSI de carreras, hasta ahora, siguiendo las directrices del “Código de la Sociedad Fomento de la Cría Caballar en España” (SFCCE), de esta forma tratamos de impedir el uso fraudulento de sustancias dopantes o el abuso de las sustancias medicamentosas. El control del doping en los hipódromos españoles empezó en 1960, gracias a un acuerdo entre la SFCCE y la Cátedra de Farmacología y Toxicología de la Facultad de Veterinaria de la Universidad Complutense, de lo sucedido en estos primeros años incluimos en nuestro trabajo un estudio crítico. En 1983 la SFCCE se modernizó y delegó la responsabilidad de los análisis de orina y sangre a un laboratorio homologado por la International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA). Por esta razón, en nuestro trabajo aportamos los datos correspondientes al control del doping de los caballos de carreras en España desde 1983 y hasta diciembre de 2014...

Risk of African swine fever introduction into the European Union through transport-associated routes: returning trucks and waste from international ships and planes

BACKGROUND The uncontrolled presence of African swine fever (ASF) in Russian Federation (RF) poses a serious risk to the whole European Union (EU) pig industry. Although trade of pigs and their products is banned since the official notification in June 2007, the potential introduction of ASF virus (ASFV) may occur by other routes, which are very frequent in ASF, and more difficult to control, such as contaminated waste or infected vehicles. This study was intended to estimate the risk of ASFV introduction into the EU through three types of transport routes: returning trucks, waste from international ships and waste from international planes, which will be referred here as transport-associated routes (TAR). Since no detailed and official information was available for these routes, a semi-quantitative model based on the weighted combination of risk factors was developed to estimate the risk of ASFV introduction by TAR. Relative weights for combination of different risk factors as well as validation of the model results were obtained by an expert opinion elicitation. RESULTS Model results indicate that the relative risk for ASFV introduction through TAR in most of the EU countries (16) is low, although some countries, specifically Poland and Lithuania, concentrate high levels of risk, the returning trucks route being the analyzed TAR that currently poses the highest risk for ASFV introduction into the EU. The spatial distribution of the risk of ASFV introduction varies importantly between the analyzed introduction routes. Results also highlight the need to increase the awareness and precautions for ASF prevention, particularly ensuring truck disinfection, to minimize the potential risk of entrance into the EU. CONCLUSIONS This study presents the first assessment of ASF introduction into the EU through TAR. The innovative model developed here could be used in data scarce situations for estimating the relative risk associated to each EU country. This simple methodology provides a rapid and easy to interpret results on risk that may be used for a target and cost-effective allocation of resources to prevent disease introduction.