Outbreak Investigations course consisted to a series of 8 online modules, covering: •Confirm that an outbreak is occurring and confirm diagnosis •Case definition •Descriptive Epidemiology •Hypothesis Generation •Analytic Epidemiology •Preliminary control and Prevention •Communication of findings •Establishing disease surveillance and monitoring The online modules were followed by live webinars, taught by the instructors who wrote each unit of the online webinar. Finally, select epidemiologists from Veterinary Services were invited to a 3-day classroom course, to collaborate with other team members and practice outbreak detection, surveillance and control. Three scenarios were created to highlight economic impact, severe consequences of an uncontrolled outbreak, OneHealth approach and the collaboration needed during a zoonotic disease outbreak.
Objective
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) created a new course in 2013 to meet needs of the veterinary epidemiologists within the Veterinary Services (VS) division. The objective of this training was to provide a standard framework to investigate animal disease outbreaks, and apply practical solutions. VS has expertise in animal surveillance, this training course demonstrated how to incorporate the fundamentals of surveillance into an outbreak scenario. The goal of course was to give epidemiologist skills and practice to more quickly and efficiently conduct an investigation, allow rapid identification of a cause, apply control measures, and limit economic and health impacts of a disease.