Interface between field veterinary services and livestock farmers/traders

• the signs of notifiable diseases to report; • how to report suspected notifiable diseases or syndromes; • the way in which a suspect case is handled; • publicity of compensation arrangements; • publicity of the penalties for non-reporting; • awareness of the negative impacts of notifiable diseases; and • the control measures to be used in the event of an outbreak.

All of these will encourage reporting of notifiable diseases. The system has the potential to be highly sensitive and to detect disease rapidly, which is one of the key requirements for the detection of highly infectious diseases such as classical swine fever and FMD. Passive surveillance is likely to generate a significant number of false positive results. All suspect cases should be investigated and the outcome recorded. These, including the negative results, should be published. Doing this will indicate to producers, government, trading partners and international organizations that the “passive” surveillance system is functioning.

Active surveillance normally focuses visits at locations regarded as high risk, although what “high” means compared with “low” is rarely clear. The visits also may be focused at concentration points such as markets. Active surveillance is costly and resource-intensive making it more appropriate for diseases that have long preclinical phases or have signs that are common and non-specific. These include diseases such as bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis, which, in some countries, are notifiable diseases. National or regional diseasecontrol campaigns may require specific active surveillance activities. The visits seek to detect specific instances of disease, but unless wide coverage can be achieved, the speed of detection is likely to be slower than with a well-functioning passive surveillance system.

To summarize, passive surveillance is not really passive and requires investment by government and the collaboration of livestock-keepers and their animal health providers. Active surveillance is independent of these latter groups (although it might use animal health providers), but it is resource-intensive and likely to be slower at detecting highly infectious diseases. Active surveillance is very important towards the end of an eradication campaign or when attempting to gain international recognition of freedom from a specific disease.

Interface between fIeld veterInary servIces and lIvestock farmers/traders

It is very important that regular contact be established between field veterinary services staff (professional and/or paraprofessional) and livestock farmers, farming communities and livestock traders. This should be both in the form of routine visits and preparedness to promptly investigate and provide assistance on disease problems. In this way, a comprehensive knowledge of endemic diseases will be accumulated and farmers will have the confidence to seek official veterinary help when they are confronted by an unusual, and potentially serious, disease occurrence. Some countries rely heavily on the private sector for the provision of official veterinary services and an additional interface between them and the veterinary authority is needed.

This interface should include farmer awareness programmes. This is one of the most critical, but sometimes neglected, aspects of preparedness planning for emergency dis-