Enhanced Animal Surveillance for Super Bowl XLIX in Maricopa County, Arizona, 2015

From December 2014 to February 2015, Maricopa County, Arizona was the host site for several high profile events, including Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl. Public health officials were allocated with implementing numerous enhanced surveillance activities to quickly identify health risks to the public. These included laboratory-based surveillance, mortality surveillance, and syndromic surveillance at select hospitals, urgent cares, hotels, and on-site at the events. Enhanced Animal Disease Surveillance (EADS) was added to detect animal disease cases, outbreaks or mortality events that (1) would be considered unusual, (2) might involve potential bioterrorism agents such as plague, tularemia, anthrax, and (3) that may signal a significant increase over back ground levels of disease. To accomplish this goal, an animal disease surveillance network was established among agencies that deal with animal health. This EADS collaboration was enacted before, during and after the Super Bowl through email updates, teleconferences and daily phone calls.