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Animal Health

Description

Production animal health syndromic surveillance (PAHSyS) data are varied: there may be standardized ratios, proportions, counts of adverse events, categorical data and even qualitative ‘intelligence’ that may need to be aggregated up a hierarchy. PAHSyS provides some unique challenges for event detection. Livestock populations are made up of many subpopulations which are constantly moving around between farms and markets to slaughter. Pathogen expression often varies across production types and rearing-intensity levels. The complexity of animal production systems necessitates monitoring many time series; and makes the investigation of statistical signals imperative and at the same time difficult and resource intensive. Having multivariate surveillance methods that can work across multiple data streams to increase both sensitivity and specificity are much needed.

Objective

The question of how to aggregate animal health information derived from multiple data streams that vary in their specificity, scale, and behaviour is not trivial. Our view is that outbreak detection in a multivariate context should be viewed as a probabilistic prediction problem.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

To date, avian influenza virus (AIV) is an unpredictable pathogen affecting both animals, birds and people. The regular emergence of new strains and variants with different properties and pathogenicities requires additional monitoring and careful research of those viruses. It is known that wild birds— especially waterfowl and shorebirds— are the main and primary reservoir of AIV in nature which makes epizootological monitoring of populations of these birds necessary.

Objective

To carry out monitoring studies of circulation of the AIV subtypes H5 and H7 in wild waterfowl and shorebirds around the Azov-Black Sea in Ukraine

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

Livestock diseases in most developing countries are often widely distributed. The wide distribution of diseases often renders whole countries ineligible to participate in international trade of meat and meat products. These trade restrictions serve as a continuous primary source of revenue loss. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) now promotes establishment of disease free zones to lessen the impact of trade restrictions. These “islands” of disease freedom not only serve as a first step in total disease freedom, but for many countries they also serve as a beacon of hope to ever returning to international trade. The selection of a region within a country to be designated as a disease free zone is likely to be based more on the fact that a particular region is yet to experience cases of a given disease than it is on the nation’s Veterinary department ability to keep the region disease free. As such, geographical regions that seem to have inherent protection against disease incursions usually due to geospatial features such as mountains, rivers, remoteness etc. serve as the best candidates for creation of disease free zones. Because the process of disease free zone creation is slow, it is important to ensure that disease surveillance is these regions is enhanced so that disease control authorities may serve as agile responders to disease incursions. This current presentation outlines the creation of a Provincial Epidemiological and Information Centre (PEIC) in Zambia’s Luapula province. This is only the second epidemiosurveillance centre in the country. Luapula province in the northern part of Zambia being one of only 3 provinces out of a total of 10 provinces that are free of theilleriosis in Zambia 2 has the potential of being Zambia’s largest disease free zone. The challenges as well as lessons learnt from setting up this epidemiosurveillance centre are presented.

Objective

This presentation outlines the steps and challenges involved in setting up a regional epidemio-surveillance centre in a resource constrained setting. While this Zambian experience is unique, the challenges encountered are typical of most developing countries and therefore the lessons learned can be applied to much of the developing world.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

In the event of a large-scale public health crisis, successfully detecting and assessing health threats and monitoring population health status over a sustained period of time is likely to require integration of information from multiple sources. In addition, this information must be shared at varying levels of detail both among different agencies or organizations within an affected locality and among response participants at local, state, and federal levels of government. In early 2007, the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) proposed a project to support member initiated consultations on priority unresolved questions in the field of syndromic surveillance (SS) research, development, or practice. The Duval County Health Department sought and obtained ISDS support to address the use of SS data in combination with other human health and veterinary surveillance data, environmental sampling data, and plume modeling results in the event of an airborne bioterrorist (BT) attack. To date, the development of SS in Florida has mainly focused on systems that monitor information from emergency department (ED) visits. In addition, because SS development was decentralized and managed primarily by county health departments, various systems were used in Florida, including ESSENCE, STARS, EARS and BioDefend.

Objective

The objective of this consultation was to develop expert, consensus-based recommendations for use of SS in combination with other human health, animal health, and environmental data sources to improve situational awareness in the event of a large-scale public health emergency. The consultation, convened by the Duval County, Florida, Health Department, involved other local and state public health offi cials from Florida who addressed this question in the context of a hypothetical BT attack scenario in Duval County. Insights arising from the consultation will be used to strengthen public health surveillance capacities as part of both local and state emergency preparedness efforts in Florida. The approach used by the consultation may be useful to other health departments seeking to enhance their emergency situational awareness capacity.

Submitted by uysz on
Description

H7N9 virus emerged in Eastern China in March 2013, which led to >550 human cases and >200 deaths in 2 years. Live poultry markets (LPMs) are considered as a major source of human H7N9 infections. In late 2013, the virus had spread to the southern provinces including Guangdong. Its provincial capital Guangzhou, detected its first local H7N9 human case in mid-January 2014 and reaching 10 cases in a month. As a response, Guangzhou government announced a two-week city-wide market closure, banning trading and storing of live poultry. Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention took this opportunity to establish enhanced surveillance on top of the existing routine LPM surveillance, to assess the impact of such on H7N9 viral isolation and survival.

Objective

This study assessed the effect of disinfection and closing live poultry markets in China on avian influenza A(H7N9) virus detection and viability in a natural setting. We characterized virus detection at different sampling sites to assess exposure risk to the general public and live poultry traders.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

African swine fever virus (ASFV), pseudorabies virus (Aujrszky’s disease virus, ADV) and porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV-2) are some of the most dangerous DNA viruses causing high amounts of morbidity and mortality in commercial and backyard pig farms. Traditional diagnosis of porcine viral infections requires complex and lengthy combinations of virological and serological tests. This study aimed to develop a method for rapid detection of the DNA-containing viral pathogens of pig in clinical materials using conventional multiplex PCR platform.

Objective

The objective was to develope the multiplex PCR for detection of the DNA-contained emergent diseases agents in pigs (African swine fever, Aujeszky disease, Circoviral disease) for diseases surveilance in pig farms

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on

WHO designated yellow fever as an endemic disease in Ethiopia in the early 1950s. Yellow fever, a zoonotic hemorrhagic fever disease (sylvatic and urban types), are endemic in Ethiopia due to its geographical location and climatic conditions favoring Aedes sp. mosquito. The mosquito vector were found to exist throughout the country up to 2,000 m in altitude. We conducted an outbreak investigation in Jink, a town surrounded by forest inhabited by many primates (monkeys).

Submitted by uysz on

Kyasannur Forest Disease (KFD) is a tick borne viral disease first reported in Shimoga district of Karnataka, India. On January 6th 2015, the disease has spread to neighbouring state, Kerala and a forest guard from Sulthan Bathery, Wayanad who had disposed the monkey carcass was succumbed to the disease following confirmation of the disease from Manipal institute of virology. Spot surveillance of the area by Health department revealed 15 more fever cases among women working as fire line workers. Out of these twelve cases were confirmed to be KFD.

Submitted by uysz on

The emergence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) in 2012 had placed a great concern on the public health institutions globally and in particular in the Arab region. The gaps in knowledge related to the novel virus put the healthcare systems in Qatar and the entire region in critical position amid growing concerns that this virus might take a deadly pattern. As the second reported case in Qatar had a documented relationship with animals, veterinary and environmental health sectors were invited to join the national outbreak control taskforce.

Submitted by uysz on