Cattle

Data collected at livestock slaughter can be a useful source of non-specific health indicators including clinical signs, symptoms and proxy measures [1]. When monitored in near real-time, this data can enable the detection of both livestock and human health threats [1]. In the United States (US), the Federal Meat Inspection Act requires ante-mortem inspection of animals and post-mortem inspection of carcasses by veterinarians to ensure the meat product will be fit for human consumption [2]. Inspections are carried out by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) and results are recorded in the Public Health Information System (PHIS), including the reason for condemnation if the animal or carcass is deemed unfit. Since April 2016 the USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Veterinary Services (VS) has used data from the PHIS to monitor changes in the weekly count/rate of cattle condemnations for three cattle types, beef cows, dairy cows, and fed cattle (steers and heifers), and for selected condemnation reasons (central nervous system (CNS), dead, emaciation, mastitis, moribund, pneumonia, pyrexia, and septicemia). These eight reasons were chosen from 45 potential reasons recorded at condemnation as likely to identify clinical signs associated with foreign animal diseases of interest and to monitor trends in important animal health issues such as pneumonia and mastitis.

Objective: Use United States cattle slaughter condemnation data as an animal health indicator for early detection of health events and to characterize trends in condemnation reasons.

In 2012 - 2017 in Azerbaijan there was an unexpected increase of abortions in cattle and sheep that was unrelated to brucellosis or chlamydia infection. The first confirmed case of Schmallenberg disease was received from Beylagan district of Azerbaijan in October 2012. The import of cattle from Europe to Azerbaijan has commenced in 2012. Therefore, the surveillance study was launched to determine spread of infection among cattle and sheep and to monitor the situation in the country.

Objective: Schmallenberg virus (SBV) is an orthobunyavirus that primarily infects domestic and wild ruminants and causes symptoms such as transient fever, diarrhea, reduced milk production, congenital malformations and abortion. The first virus was identified in 2011 at the onset of a major outbreak in Europe (Germany, Hungary, and France).