Epidemiological Surveillance and On-farm Inspections: Rural Veterinary Network, Public-private Sector Relations, Training of Farmers and Veterinarians

Crucial elements for a surveillance system are:  organisation pre-requisites (e.g. compliance to the provisions of the Terrestrial Animal Health Code on quality and evaluation of Veterinary Services);  proper and up-to-date training of personnel (field services, central structures and laboratory personnel);  proper knowledge of target populations, that implies the existence of an identification system for animals and herds;  proper knowledge of the time and space dynamics of the target population, that implies the existence of a traceability system;  generation of trustable information on the health status of the country's animal populations and of individual animals intended for trade (i.e. trustable certificates), that implies the existence of a system for quality management and possibly ‘formalised’ quality assurance systems;  scientifically valid and fully documented methods for the analysis of data generated by the surveillance system;  revision procedures aimed at the continuous improvement of the overall system.