brucellosis, tuberculosis, and others), there are a several other significant justifications 

 for animal health surveillance. These include the rapid detection of emerging animal 

 and public health issues and accidentally or intentionally introduced foreign animal 

 disease agents. Animal health surveillance also provides support for the marketability 

 of animals and animal products by demonstrating quality and safety attributes of 

 products through quality assurance and certification programs and by providing 

 scientifically sound evidence of regional prevalence for trade-significant diseases. 



Historically, animal health surveillance systems in the United States have been 

 designed primarily for specific disease control or eradication programs. Nov^, 

 how^ever, working in collaboration with State and industry partners, APHIS is 

 moving toward an organizational and inlt)rmational inlrastructure that supports 

 baseline animal health monitoring and "grows" a dynamic knowledge base for actions 

 designed to reduce morbidity, mortality, and economic losses while improving animal 

 health, productivity, marketability, and product safety. 



APHIS-VS is focusing on several key areas during the enhancement of current 

 national animal health surveillance efforts: 



• Enhancement of surveillance for current program diseases, 



• Rapid detection of emerging and foreign animal diseases, 



• Surveillance for diseases affecting marketability or economics of industry, 



• Surveillance based on risk of disease, 



• Monitoring of animal health trends, and 



• Ability to do focused surveillance as needed. 



In closing, we cannot overemphasize the key role veterinary practitioners play in 

 national disease surveillance efforts. The veterinarian in the field is the critical first 

 line of defense against disease incursion. 



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