Timely Reporting and Interactive Visualization of Animal Health and Slaughterhouse Surveillance Data in Switzerland.

The reporting of outputs from health surveillance systems should be done in a near real-time and interactive manner in order to provide decision makers with powerful means to identify, assess, and manage health hazards as early and efficiently as possible. While this is currently rarely the case in veterinary public health surveillance, reporting tools do exist for the visual exploration and interactive interrogation of health data. In this work, we used tools freely available from the Google Maps and Charts library to develop a web application reporting health-related data derived from slaughterhouse surveillance and from a newly established web-based equine surveillance system in Switzerland.

Critical incidence reporting systems - an option in equine anaesthesia? Results from a panel meeting.

Objective: To provide a brief introduction into Critical Incident Reporting Systems (CIRS) as used in human medicine, and to report the discussion from a recent panel meeting discussion with 23 equine anaesthetists in preparation for a new CEPEF-4 (Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Equine Fatalities) study.

Study Design: Moderated group discussions, and review of literature.

Methods: The first group discussion focused on the definition of 'preventable critical incidents' and/or 'near misses' in the context of equine anaesthesia.

Isolation and characterisation of equine influenza viruses (H3N8) from Europe and North America from 2008 to 2009.

Like other influenza A viruses, equine influenza virus undergoes antigenic drift. It is therefore essential that surveillance is carried out to ensure that recommended strains for inclusion in vaccines are kept up to date. Here we report antigenic and genetic characterisation carried out on equine influenza virus strains isolated in North America and Europe over a 2-year period from 2008 to 2009.