Active animal health surveillance in European Union Member States: gaps and opportunities

Bisdorff, B., Schauer, B., Taylor, N., Rodriguez-Prieto, V., Comin, A., Brouwer, A., Dorea, F., Drewe, J., Hoinville, L., Lindberg, A., Martinez-Aviles, M., Martinez-Lopez, B., Peyre, M., Pinto Ferreira, J., Rushton, J., Van Schaik, G., Stark, K. D. C., Staubach, C., Vicente-Rubiano, M., Witteveen, G., Pfeiffer, D. and Hasler, B. (2017) Active animal health surveillance in European Union Member States: gaps and opportunities. Epidemiology and Infection, 145 (4). pp. 802-817. ISSN 1469-4409 doi: 10.1017/S0950268816002697

Abstract/Summary

Animal health surveillance enables the detection and control of animal diseases including zoonoses. Under the EU-FP7 project RISKSUR, a survey was conducted in 11 EU Member States and Switzerland to describe active surveillance components in 2011 managed by the public or private sector and identify gaps and opportunities. Information was collected about hazard, target population, geographical focus, legal obligation, management, surveillance design, risk-based sampling, and multi-hazard surveillance. Two countries were excluded due to incompleteness of data. Most of the 664 components targeted cattle (26·7%), pigs (17·5%) or poultry (16·0%). The most common surveillance objectives were demonstrating freedom from disease (43·8%) and case detection (26·8%). Over half of components applied risk-based sampling (57·1%), but mainly focused on a single population stratum (targeted risk-based) rather than differentiating between risk levels of different strata (stratified risk-based). About a third of components were multi-hazard (37·3%). Both risk-based sampling and multi-hazard surveillance were used more frequently in privately funded components. The study identified several gaps (e.g. lack of systematic documentation, inconsistent application of terminology) and opportunities (e.g. stratified risk-based sampling). The greater flexibility provided by the new EU Animal Health Law means that systematic evaluation of surveillance alternatives will be required to optimize cost-effectiveness.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/69226
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/S0950268816002697
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Animal Sciences > Animal, Dairy and Food Chain Sciences (ADFCS)- DO NOT USE
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item