National Animal Health Surveillance System Outlook
Issue 3, December 2004
The NAHSS Outlook is an electronic communication with information about the National Animal Health Surveillance System (NAHSS) that is distributed via email to all members of Veterinary Services. Contact the National Surveillance Unit to provide comments and suggestions for future topics.
Articles in This Issue:
- National Animal Identification System (NAIS)
- A Plan for Enhanced Surveillance of Classical Swine Fever (CSF)
- VS Atlas: A Geographic Data Library
- Pathfinder: Tools for Electronic Surveillance
Priorities: National Animal Identification System
The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is a key component in the continued development of a National Animal Health Surveillance System. The NAIS will provide standards for identifying the locations of livestock premises, animal identification number management, tracking of animal movements/sightings, and associated data elements. The initial phase of NAIS is well under way and focuses on implementing the National Premises Registration System. Read more about the National Animal Identification System.
Developments: A Plan for Enhanced Surveillance for Classical Swine Fever
The National Surveillance Unit (NSU) has assembled a team to design a national surveillance plan for classical swine fever (CSF). The foremost objective of the surveillance plan is to ensure the timely detection of CSF, should it be introduced into the U.S. swine population. The team has identified five surveillance programs to meet this objective. The two programs that have been designed thus far are population-based passive reporting of suspicious CSF cases and laboratory-based surveillance of serum and tissue submitted from sick pigs. Read more about Enhanced Surveillance for Classical Swine Fever.
Technology: VS Atlas: A Geographic Data Library
The Center for Emerging Issues' Geographic Information Systems (GIS) unit has developed VS Atlas, a central repository of spatial data suitable for use in surveillance, emergency response efforts, spatial analysis, modeling, and other GIS activities within VS. The VS Atlas contains data for a large range of topic areas including: agricultural census, animal diseases, base layers, disease vectors, land cover, surveillance, topography, veterinary resources, and wildlife/insects. Read more about the VS Atlas: A Geographic Data Library.
Issues: Pathfinder: Tools for Electronic Surveillance
The Center for Emerging Issues (CEI) acts as VS' "eyes and ears" outside the usual VS information channels. Electronic scanning of information has become a primary component in identifying emerging issues. Pathfinder is one of the key scanning tools used by CEI for this purpose. This software enables analysts to simultaneously search, sort, compare, visualize, map, cluster, and perform "link analysis" on thousands of documents from many different sources. Read more about Pathfinder: Tools for Electronic Surveillance.