NAHSS Activity Update, January 2007
Evaluating Brucellosis Surveillance
The National Surveillance Unit is completing an evaluation of the bovine brucellosis program's surveillance activities. The evaluation's purpose is to identify opportunities to modify surveillance to use resources more efficiently and better achieve the national brucellosis program's objectives. The evaluation team has analyzed data and gathered information from numerous stakeholders throughout VS, focusing primarily on Class-free States. States are designated brucellosis free when none of their cattle or bison are found to be infected for 12 consecutive months under an active surveillance program. As of 2006, 48 States are listed as Class-free in accordance with the brucellosis regulations. Thirty-four of these States have been Class-free for 10 or more years, while 22 of those States have been Class-free for 20 or more years
Working Group Begins Brucellosis Surveillance Plan
Veterinary Services has formed a working group to begin brucellosis surveillance planning and implementation. This planning effort will be based on the National Surveillance Unit's surveillance standards. The working group consists of Veterinary Services representatives, State veterinarians and cattle industry representatives. This group is scheduled to meet in mid-February to begin surveillance planning; it is expected that some of its work will be implemented by FY 2008.
Syndromic Surveillance Methods Development
Veterinary Services has entered into a cooperative agreement with Colorado State University to develop criteria for syndromic surveillance in auction markets. Syndromic surveillance is defined as actively looking for groups of symptoms or signs of disease, rather than specific diseases; an increase in a specific syndrome would trigger an epidemiological investigation that could be indicative of a disease outbreak. The goal of the project is to improve early detection of foreign or emerging diseases in U.S. livestock auction markets.
The project will be conducted in four phases. The objectives of each phase are to:
- Perform a detailed descriptive analysis of cattle marketed through U.S. livestock auctions that will include investigation of the number of consigners and buyers, sizes of cattle groups, mixing through presorting of sale groups, temporal patterns, regional patterns, and other parameters; followed by a contact network analysis to investigate the potential for transmission of infectious agents;
- Develop an algorithm for identifying criteria to select auction markets as sentinels for syndromic surveillance and establish sentinel surveillance sites;
- Develop specific methods for applying the criteria, and for reporting and collating syndromic surveillance data at U.S. auction markets; and
- Conduct a review of the VS' current sentinel feedlot monitoring program.