Protecting U.S. animal populations requires constant monitoring of disease events and conditions which might lead to disease emergence, both domestically and globally. Since 1999, the Center for Emerging issues (CEI has actively monitored global information sources to provide early detection impact assessments and increased awareness of emerging disease events and conditions. The importance of these activities was reinforced after September 11, 2001, and these processes are now part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9. Electronic information sources available through the Internet have recently changed the way animal health information is gathered, processed and shared. To respond to these changes, CEI developed a dynamic system containing automated and semiautomated components that process information from various sources to identify, track, and evaluate emerging disease situations.
Objective
This paper describes a system of automatic and semiautomatic processes for data gathering, assessment, and event tracking used by the CEI to enhance monitoring of global animal health events and conditions.