Surveillance and monitoring of disease

Monitoring of the epidemiological patterns (animal, place, time) of diseases and pathogens within populations provides a vital system for the identification of changes in disease status within the population (whether this population be all animals worldwide, or those within a country, region, village or farm). As such, many countries have systems in place for the intermittent collection and collation of data relating to disease. Monitoring of production levels also provides a method of informing farmers about the productivity of their animals.

Surveillance differs conceptually from monitoring as it is an ongoing, systematic process for the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. As a result of these activities, the results can be disseminated will inform which future actions are to be taken. However, similar systems of data collection are often used in both monitoring and surveillance.