Cultural Practices Shaping Zoonotic Diseases Surveillance: The Case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and Thailand Native Chicken Farmers.

Effectiveness of current passive zoonotic disease surveillance systems is limited by the under-reporting of disease outbreaks in the domestic animal population. Evaluating the acceptability of passive surveillance and its economic, social and cultural determinants appears a critical step for improving it. A participatory rural appraisal was implemented in a rural subdistrict of Thailand.

Implementation of internal laboratory quality control procedures for the monitoring of ELISA performance at a regional veterinary laboratory.

Quality control (QC) procedures for antigen detection enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for hog cholera (HC) virus, foot and mouth disease (FMD) virus, and an antibody detection ELISA for FMD virus were established at a regional veterinary laboratory in northern Thailand. A recently developed computer software package, QCEL, was used to facilitate management and analysis of QC data. The program was used to assess test performance by producing Shewhart-CUSUM control charts which monitored control data for unacceptable fluctuations or trends.