Lessons and challenges in implementing aquatic disease surveillance in developing countries
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1
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Italy
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2
University of Sarajevo, Veterinary Faculty, Bosnia and Herzegovina
The importance of aquatic animal diseases have been highlighted in several key aquaculture references and they continue to gain recognition as one of the most challenging sustainability issues which need to be addressed in this fastest-growing food producing sector. There are many actions and approaches to understanding disease patterns in populations including outbreak investigations, case studies and surveillance.
During the last few years, requests to FAO for technical assistance for capacity building on and design of surveillance programmes for aquatic diseases have increased.
A number of technical publications specifically for aquatic animals (Cameron, 2002; Subasinghe, McGladdery and Hill, 2004; Corsin et al., 2009) elaborated on the principles of surveillance, sampling, survey types, survey design and planning. Using these, we drew a surveillance checklist that provided guidance in the step-by-step design and implementation of aquatic disease surveillance for non-specialists.
The 12-point surveillance checklist consists of: (1) objective/purpose; (2) definition of population; (3) clustering of disease; (4) case/outbreak definition; (5) sampling; (6) diagnostic tests; (7) methodology; (8) data management; (9) validation; (10) quality assurance; (11) human and financial requirements; and (12) surveillance in the bigger picture (biosecurity, animal health, aquaculture).
This checklist is currently being used in recently past and an on-going FAO/ASTF project GCP/SFS/001/MUL “Active surveillance of epizootic ulcerative syndrome (EUS) in 8 countries in southern Africa region”. Due to the different EUS status of the participating countries, three scenarios (reflecting the current country EUS status) were used to define the surveillance objective, i.e. Scenario 1: infected country (one or more EUS cases reported previously); Scenario 2: unknown status (no reported cases and no previous surveillance activities, however, country is considered at risk); and Scenario 3: considered free (no reported cases in previous surveillance activities).
Surveillance is an important element of a national biosecurity and aquatic animal strategy. It is closely linked to other elements of such a strategy (i.e. national pathogen list, diagnostics, legislation, certification of export health status, reporting obligations, risk management, information system, etc.). It cannot be implemented in isolation and it should always be put in the context of the aquatic environment and risk analysis and the unique and salient features of the aquaculture sector.
The lessons and challenges in implementing disease surveillance for aquatic diseases in developing countries are discussed in this presentation.
References
Cameron, A. 2002. Survey Toolbox for Aquatic Animal Diseases. A Practical Manual and Software Package. ACIAR Monograph No. 94, 375p.
Corsin, F., Georgiadis, K., Hammell, L and Hill, B. 2009. Guide for Aquatic Animal Health Surveillance. World Animal Health Organisation, Paris, France. 113p.
http://www.oie.int/doc/ged/d6714.pdf
Subasinghe, R.P.; McGladdery, S.E.; Hill, B.J. (eds.). 2004. Surveillance and zoning for aquatic animal diseases. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 451. Rome, FAO. 2004. 73p.
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/y5325e/y5325e00.pdf
Keywords:
Aquatic disease surveillance,
FAO/ASTF Project GCP/SFS/001/MUL,
12-point surveilance checklist,
EUS surveillance,
Southern Africa region
Conference:
AquaEpi I - 2016, Oslo, Norway, 20 Sep - 22 Sep, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Keynote
Topic:
Aquatic Animal Epidemiology
Citation:
Bondad-Reantaso
MG and
Fejzic
N
(2016). Lessons and challenges in implementing aquatic disease surveillance in developing countries.
Front. Vet. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
AquaEpi I - 2016.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FVETS.2016.02.00003
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Received:
30 Aug 2016;
Published Online:
14 Sep 2016.
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Correspondence:
Dr. Melba G Bondad-Reantaso, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Rome, Italy, Melba.Reantaso@fao.org