Professor Alasdair Cook

28 Pages·2014·2.6 MB·English

New Technologies for
Sur veillance/Monitoring on
the Farm
Prof. Alasdair JC Cook & Jimmy Wiseman
Dept of Veterinary Epidemiology & Public Health
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of Surrey
Sheep Health and Welfare Conference
Wednesday 26th November 2014
Yarnfield Park Training and Conference Centre,
Stone, Staffordshire, ST15 0NL
Organised by the Sheep Health and Welfare Group (SHAWG).
Outline
• New approaches to delivery of surveillance
• Surveillance definition
• Purposes of surveillance
• Sources of information
• Users of information
• New technologies for detection and testing for disease
• Why do we need new tests?
• Desirable test characteristics
• LAMP tests
Introduction
• UK sheep population is approx 36 million sheep

• Ewe mortality estimated as 3% - 8%
• loss of up to one million ewes/ year

• Estimated ewe replacement rates approx 20%
• Lamb losses (birth – sale) 8% - 10%
• Health & welfare issues include:
• Lameness
• Parasites (internal & external)
• Abortion & infertility
• Mastitis
• Production disease (metabolic/ nutritional etc)
• As Schmallenberg illustrated, sheep industry like
other livestock sectors is susceptible to incursion of
new diseases
“The systematic, continuous or repeated, measurement, collection,
collation, analysis, interpretation and timely dissemination of animal
health and welfare related data from defined populations. These data
are then used to describe health hazard occurrence and to contribute
to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of risk mitigation
actions”.
Animal Health Surveillance Terminology
Final Report from Pre-ICAHS Workshop
July 2013 (version 1.2)
http://www.fp7-risksur.eu/fileadmin/risksur/Documents/Publications/icahs-workshop-2011_surveillance_tewrminology_report_V1.2.pdf
Surveillance: Intelligence for Action
“The greatest challenge facing surveillance systems is “Surveillance for the unknown requires a mindset
awareness of the unexpected, recognising when things seem different from surveillance of the known”
not quite right” Vourc’h G, et al (2006) EID 12 204-210
MacLehose L, et al (2002) Science 295 2047-50
Surveillance purposes
• Scanning surveillance
• Demonstrate freedom from disease or infection
• Describe the level and distribution of specified diseases
• Describe changes in the health of the population or
changes that may threaten the health of the population,
this may include changes in the population at risk, changes
in the occurrence of health indicators or of specified
diseases
• Detect threats to human health
• Provide evidence in support of international trade
• Detect cases to facilitate control
Animal Health Surveillance and Farmed Livestock
• Stockperson observation includes all animals
• Veterinary practice records include individual clinical
cases and may include herd parameters
• Herd / flock production data:
• Systematic info from many farms
• Laboratory data:
• Diagnostic; cases
• Screening; any animal
• Abattoir data – healthy
• Fallen Stock data – dead
• Movement records - transmission
The Surveillance Chain
Farmer
Veterinary
Private Vet
Specialist
Member of
the public

Veterinary surgeons checking for disease: Whole carcases or other samples
1. On farm. submitted to:
Problems first spotted:
Whole carcase
2. At markets. 1. APHA.
1. On farm.
3. At agricultural shows 2. SAC.
2. In the habitat (wildlife).
4. At slaughterhouses. 3. Private Laboratories.
How have emerging diseases been found?
Source of first alert among 117 new or re-emerging threats detected by APHA Scanning Surveillance

ASSP 2011. Sustainable scanning surveillance in England and Wales: A report from the AHVLA Sustainable
Surveillance Project. http://vla.defra.gov.uk/reports/docs/rep_assp_report1211.pdf
Not a New Technology, But…
A pilot study on the value of fallen stock necropsy (Lovatt & Strugnell, 2013)
aimed to investigate the diagnostic potential of this material and consider how
such information might be applied to improve sheep health, welfare and
productivity.

• Concluded that it is often possible to diagnose the cause of death without
expensive diagnostic testing.
• Proposed that examination of fallen stock would lower the threshold for
diagnostic investigation and thus improve best practice on UK sheep farms.
• For national disease surveillance and at the farm level, ongoing use of this
concept may prove invaluable for livestock industries and the scope for its
development is considerable.