ANIMAL DISEASE REPORTING AND SURVEILLANCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
1.1 International standards .................................................................................................3
1.2 Role of the OIE (Office International des Epizooties)..................................................3
1.2.1 OIE missions ........................................................................................................3
1.2.2 The Director General of the OIE: .........................................................................3
1.3 Role of CAC (Codex Alimentarius Commission) .......................................................4
2 Disease reporting and Surveillance......................................................................................4
2.1 Animal Health Epidemio-surveillance Systems (ESS).................................................4
2.2 Framework for a Surveillance System..........................................................................5
3 Role of stakeholders in surveillance and disease reporting.................................................6
4 REFERENCES....................................................................................................................6
1 Introduction

1.1 International standards

International organisations involved with public and animal health include the
World Trade Organization (WTO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and
World Health Organisation (WHO). At the sector level, the international
organisations developing "standards" (standards, guidelines and related texts) are
the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) and the Office International des
Epizooties (OIE).

1.2 Role of the OIE (Office International des Epizooties)

The Office International des Epizooties (based in Paris, France) is an independent

inter-governmental world animal health organization that protects animal health
and welfare.
It currently has 172 member countries.

1.2.1 OIE missions

To guarantee the transparency of animal disease status world-wide
To collect, analyze and disseminate veterinary scientific information
To provide expertise and promote international solidarity for the control of animal
diseases

To guarantee the sanitary safety of world trade by developing sanitary rules for
international trade in animals and animal products.
The organization was created following the Rinderpest epizootic in Belgium in
1920. The disease had originated in India and concern over the spread led to an
international conference in Paris in March 1921. An
The OIE sets international standards, but does not have the power of legal
enforcement. Therefore, the World Trade Organization (WTO) in an effort to
enforce this has developed a series of AOAs (Agreements on Agriculture) and
“Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures” which apply to
certifying animals and animal products for international trade.
OIE standards are designed to be trade enabling, not trade restricting.
Unfortunately there are some member countries that put in place unjustifiable trade
barriers. These results in significant economic impacts for exporting countries and
a loss of credibility for OIE, and the countries taking such action.

1.2.2 The Director General of the OIE:

Dr Bernard Vallat was elected Director General of the OIE in May 2000 by the
International Committee, which brings together the Delegates of all the Member
Countries. His five year mandate started 1 January 2001.In May 2005, but he was
re- elected Director General for a further five year mandate.
1.3 Role of CAC (Codex Alimentarius Commission)
The CAC develops international food standards, guidelines and related texts.
Standards concerned with food safety should be implemented within a generic
framework for managing food-borne risks and should “recognise the need for
flexibility consistent with the protection of consumers’ health

2 Disease reporting and Surveillance

OIE standards are recognised by the WTO if they are scientifically based and are
prepared by member countries’ internationally recognised scientists and adopted
by members. Delegates of member countries receive draft standards enabling their
own experts to comment before adoption and thereby we all can participate in the
standard setting process. This enables members to have confidence in the OIE
standards.

The fundamental principles for veterinary services to be effective are to use

professional judgement, demonstrate impartiality, show integrity, ensure
transparency and be objective in science and risk-based standards. Under the
WTO, members can apply measures more restrictive than OIE standards, but
these must be based on robust risk analysis, be scientifically sound and be
justifiable depending on the importing countries’ health situation.
Therefore in disease reporting and surveillance / epidemio -surveiillance systems
are undertaken so as to collect, analyze and disseminate veterinary scientific
information.

Surveillance - “Watching over”- Is the continuous investigation of a given

population to detect the occurrence of disease for control purposes.
Epidemiological surveillance is the systematic and continuous collection, analysis
and interpretation of health data (often designed to detect the appearance of a
specific disease)

OR
Watching over a population and recording data likely to have epidemiological
significance, usually with the aim of early detection of disease. This is essentially
an interventionist exercise compared with monitoring, which is passive.

2.1 Animal Health Epidemio-surveillance Systems (ESS)

The main objective of an ESS is to collect, analyse, interpret data and disseminate
information to relevant users. Information collected would then lead to improved
knowledge and awareness of the distribution and behavior of disease outbreaks
(and of infection) in order to allow for:
Forecasting of the source and evolution of the disease outbreaks
Planning and monitoring of disease control programmes.

An Epidemio-surveillance System is made up of:

 Passive surveillance
 Active surveillance
 Laboratory diagnosis.
Passive surveillance.— sampling, including necropsy examination, of clinically
normal samples of the population; important in the surveillance of diseases in
which sub clinical cases and carriers predominate.

Active surveillance — Examination of only clinically affected cases of specified

diseases in the population.

The ESS will ultimately result in the provision of sound animal health advice to
farmers; Emergency preparedness (Early Warning systems), enabling the rapid
detection of the introduction of or sudden increase in, the incidence of priority
livestock diseases that may otherwise develop to epidemic proportions or cause
serious socio-economic consequences or public health concerns.
Other benefits of ESS include; certification of export livestock and livestock
products; international reporting and proof of freedom from diseases; and
international trading in livestock and livestock products which require regular
credible reports on a country’s disease status to allow for risk assessment by
trading partners.

2.2 Framework for a Surveillance System

The information to collect will vary and as such a surveillance system should be
customizable to a state.
However, in general public health will require the following
Information to be gathered for unusual animal deaths.

 Date animal is found

 Individual taking the information
 Phone, Address, other Contactinformation
 What type of animal (species)
 How many animals
 Age (infant, adult, geriatric)
 Location of animal(s)
 Over how large of an area were they found
 Signs of traumatic injury
 Do the animals appear normal, skinny, eating well …
 Were they seen before death, if so how were they acting
 Have pesticides or other chemicals been sprayed in the area recently
 Lab results
 Case notes and comments

Information gathered should be displayed graphically. It should be correlated with

human disease reports to allow epidemiologist to conduct case investigations that
include all information.

As public health implements programs to address the animal disease, the

Surveillance system should allow the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the
various programs.
The system should also support risk assessment and should be one component of
an overall Epidemiologic Command Centre.

3 Role of stakeholders in surveillance and disease reporting

The Law: Statutory back-up in disease reporting makes it mandatory. Thus various
stakeholders will be involved at different levels of hierarchy.

These include;
 Livestock keepers/owners,
 livestock traders,
 Abattoir staff,
 Laboratories
 public and private Animal health service providers
 Community
 Community leaders
 Political leaders
 Law enforcement agents
 CBOs – Community Based Organisations
 NGOs – Non-Governmental Organisations.
 Development agencies/Donors
 Logisticians
 Shipping agencies
 Business community

4 REFERENCES

1. Veterinary epidemiology and economics unit – Kabete, Nairobi.

2. Terrestrial Animal Health Code 2008.
3. Wikipedia; Veterinary dictionary
4. http://www.oie.int
5. Scientific Technologies Corporation, 2002,