In September 2002, a training course was organized by the Center for Epidemiology and Animal Health (CEAH), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Fort Collins, on emerging animal health issues identification and analysis.
Within USDA, CEAH is part of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Veterinary Services. The Center is further divided into four units, namely the Center for Animal Disease Information and Analysis and Control (CADIA), the Center for Animal Health Monitoring (CAHM), the Center for Emerging Issues (CEI) and Program Support and Evaluation staff.
The training course focused on tools, methodologies and recent technologies available to address emerging animal health issues at the national and international levels, based on the experience developed by CEI in this field |
CEAH's mandate is to provide decision-makers with timely information and technical services on animal health issues in order to ensure a safe and economical supply of food and agricultural products in the United States. As an OIE collaborating centre, CEAH also provides a series of training courses on risk analysis and geographic information systems for OIE member countries. At the national level, CEI is responsible for anticipating emerging animal health issues, which are a potential threat to the national livestock, and also identifies emerging market conditions for animal products.
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The training course focused on tools, methodologies and recent technologies available to address emerging animal health issues at the national and international levels, based on the experience developed by CEI in this field. One of the main activities of the Center is to monitor constantly the international animal health situation, identify as early as possible new trends and patterns, and inform decision-makers of the potential impact they may have on the livestock industry. Based on the principles of competitive intelligence developed by commercial companies, CEI uses internal and external networks as well as clipping services and text-mining software to identify these new trends. One of the key elements of the system is represented by the data- mining software called Pathfinder (textual database), originally designed for the United States military forces, and adapted to capture animal health data. This sophisticated tool archives information regularly scanned from Web sites (AgWorldwide, AgAm, OIE) and mailing lists (AnimalNet, Promed) and provides up-to-date inform-ation, which is further analysed and verified by CEI's team. CEI also subscribes to Dialog Newsroom, a news service provider that gathers more than 6 000 sources of information. Despite the fact that Dialog Newsroom's query system is not as powerful as Pathfinder, it is considered as one of the best sources of information available today.
Unusual animal health events identified by Pathfinder, Dialog Newsroom or other sources of information (internal network, clipping services) are then recorded into CEI's tracking system, a Lotus Notes database, for further analysis and disease tracking.
As far as external communication is concerned, CEI publishes impact worksheets (initial assessments of newly identified risks) on its Web site or an emerging disease notice in case of newly emerging issues (e.g. the Nipah virus).
The training course also reviewed several other issues, such as the situation with regard to West Nile fever in the United States, and presented specific networks dealing with emerging diseases in-country.
The next training course on the same topic will take place from 29 April to 2 May 2003.
For more information, see: CEAH Web site: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ceah/;
CEI Web page: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ceah/cei/index.htm
An advanced seminar on animal and human brucellosis was organized by the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Studies (CIHEAM - Centre international des hautes études agronomiques méditerranéennes) and the Department of Microbiology, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
William Amanfu, FAO Animal Health Officer (Bacterial Diseases and Zoonoses), attended the meeting and presented a paper on “The role of FAO in the control of brucellosis”.
The principal objective of the seminar was to educate the participants, through reviews, lectures, discussions and laboratory exercises, on traditional and more recent methodologies in the control of brucellosis in animals and humans. The seminar also outlined the advantages and limitations of current diagnostic and prophylactic tools, technical aspects of their use and strategies to be adopted in the control/eradication of brucellosis.
This was a very successful seminar, attended by 38 participants from 23 countries. The quality of scientific papers presented and the level of discussions were excellent. The seminar afforded an insight into problems encountered in brucellosis control in different countries and knowledge of modern tools and strategies to control the disease.
