Principles and Challenges of Fundamental Methods in Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics

In the introduction of this paper the increasingly accepted nomenclature of basic expressions used in veterinary epidemiology is presented. This is in accordance with the 2018 Edition of Wiley-Blackwell Veterinary Epidemiology, by Michael Thrusfield. Pandemia and not Panzootia is used for large scale outbreaks of infectious diseases also in relation to animals characterizing significantly increased morbidity and mortatlity over a wide geographic area, including countries, continents or even the whole globe and causing significant economic, social and even political disruption. It is underlined that the pandemics of infectious diseases of animals will continue to increase because of the growing transboundary trade and transportation of animals and animal products and increasing international contacts of humans. In the control of pandemics of humans, particularly, for example of influenza of the years 1918-1919, and also in 1968, but also pandemics of other ethiology occurring in humans the World Health Organisation (WHO) took the leading position. In case of avian and swine influenza as well as in pandemics occurring in animals, the leading position in prevention, control and eradication belongs to World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The main part of this paper is devoted to the characterization of the pandemic of African Swine Fever (ASF) which started in 2007 in Georgia, transmitted from Africa. Countries, where ASF virus (ASFV) was confirmed by laboratory tests are mentioned in the text of this paper. They are located in Eurasia. Among them are countries, being members of the European Union (EU). The routs of spreading of the ASFV in wild boar and swine are given, the methods of ASF control in EU were presented. The main vector of the ASF spread in EU, is the wild boar and the humans. Future distribution of the pandemia spread of ASFV is difficult to predict. Veterinary services of many countries, practitioners and scientists are working intensively to understand epidemiology of ASF and to stop the spread of ASFV.

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A literature-based review was made to assess the applications of GIS in veterinary epidemiology and its relevance in the prevention and control of animal diseases.

International Journal of Veterinary Science and Research ◽

10.17352/ijvsr.000053 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 047-051

Author(s):

Fayisa Wakgari Oljira

Keyword(s):

Spatial Data ◽

Prevention And Control ◽

Complex Disease ◽

Value Added ◽

Control Program ◽

Population Data ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Animal Diseases ◽

Veterinary Epidemiology ◽

And Control

A literature-based review was made to assess the applications of GIS in veterinary epidemiology and its relevance in the prevention and control of animal diseases. GIS is “a powerful set of tools for collecting, retrieving, transforming, and displaying spatial data from the real world”. Overall, a GIS is a platform consisting of hardware, software, data, and people and encompasses a fundamental and universally applicable set of value-added tools for capturing, transforming, managing, analyzing, and presenting information that is geographically referenced. These data can be combined with population data and previous disease records for the prediction of diseases. Applications of GIS are very wide in all human activities. It is used for marketing studies, telecommunications, and the location of restaurants, museums, and hospitals; in tracking truck traffic; in establishing maps of animal population density by species or maps of changes in vegetation; in locating forests, rivers, and mountains and in determining soil compositions. The application of GIS to the veterinary field has been developed over the last decade. Specialized software is becoming more affordable and user friendly. GIS can be applied in veterinary epidemiology for investigation of complex disease problems, GIS is used for early warning systems, for recording and reporting disease information and for planning animal disease prevention and control program. One of the most useful functions of GIS in epidemiology is its utility in basic mapping. It is believed that GIS will play an important role in the control and eradication of epidemic Transboundary Animal Diseases (TADs). Thus training of veterinary staff on GIS, its tools, and applications are highly recommended.

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