This document discusses and compares monitoring and surveillance in veterinary epidemiology. It defines surveillance as a more intensive form of monitoring that involves the gathering, analysis, and dissemination of disease data to support control actions. The key differences provided are that surveillance requires professional analysis and judgment to make recommendations, has formulated standards, and can differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable changes in disease status. Various types of surveillance systems and their uses in disease control planning and evaluation are also outlined.

1. Vinodh Kumar,O.R and J. P. Yadav
Division of Epidemiology
ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute
Izatnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India

2.  Ongoing , continuous, routine observation on health and production
of animal
 Ongoing efforts directed at assessing the health and disease status of
a given population
 Essential integral component of management planning.
 Direct relationship between the accuracy of condition that
management can deliver and the level of accuracy that a monitoring
project is designed to measure.
 Development of any monitoring strategy should be based on
availability of resource and on a risk assessment.
(Martin et al., 1987; Thrusfield, 2005)

3.  Surveillance is continuous scrutening or watchfulness over
the distribution and spread of infection or disease for
effective control and prevention of disease.
(Last, 2001)
 Surveillance is a more intensive form of data recording
than monitoring (Thrusfield, 2005)
 Surveillance refers to a specific extension of monitoring
where obtained information is utilised and measures
are taken if certain threshold values related to disease status
have been passed (Noordhuizen et al. 1997)
Use:-
 Planning and assessment of disease control measures.

4.  1374- Italy for control of Human plague.
 1711-1774- Lansisi used Rinderpest surveillance.
 1920 (Belgium)- check the spread of R.P. a committee is
formed, later known as O.I.E.

5. S.NO. Monitoring Surveillance
1 Specific and essential part of
surveillance.
Broad term, Monitoring is one of
constituent.
2 Carried out by any technician
or any automated machine.
Require professional analysis and
sofisticated judegement of data
leading to recommendation of
control action.
3 Formulated standard. Lacks formulated standards.
4 Differentiate between
acceptable and unacceptable
change.
Doesn’t differentiate between
acceptable and unacceptable change.

6.  Essential part of disease control
 Originally applied to individual/ primarily to contacts of
serious communicable diseases(Pneumonic Plague)
 Later includes diseases and related factors
 More intensive form of data recording than monitoring and
has three distinct element (Christensen, 2001).
o Gathering, recording and analysis of data
o Dissemination of information to interested parties
o Action can be taken to control the disease

7.  Rapid detection of disease outbreak
 Early identification of disease problem
 Assessment of health status of a defined population
 Definition of priorities for a disease control and prevention
 Identification of new and emerging disease
 Evaluation of disease control programmes
 Provision of information to plan and conduct research
 Confirmation of options of a specific disease

8.  Sentinel surveillance
 Serological surveillance(sero-surveillance)
 Passive surveillance
 Active surveillance
 Targeted surveillance
 Scanning surveillance

9.  Entire national herd- Testing of Bovine brucellosis
 Few farms, Abattoirs, veterinary practices or laboratories
 Ex- sentinel equine premises for vesicular stomatitis virus
and Venezuelan equine encephalitis
 Stray dogs for canine parvo virus
 Domestic animals for Human environmental health hazards,
carcinogens and insecticides

10.  Identification of patterns of current and past infection using
serological test.
 Ex- Food and mouth disease in European union

11.  Continuous monitoring of the existing disease status of the
population that are survived
 Ex- reports of laboratory diagnosis, routine meat inspections
finding and statutory notification of disease
 Essentially monitoring with the intention of acting on its
finding.
Disadvantage:-
 Uses data that may be biased, frequently lacking
denominator values and can’t give unbiased estimates of
disease frequency.
(Thrusfield, 2005)

12.  Collect information commonly by undertaking surveys of
specific diseases.
 Based on well diagnosed surveys.
Advantage:-
 Can produce the unbiased estimate
(Thrusfield, 2005)

13.  Collect specific information about a defined disease so that
its level in a defined population can be measured and its
options monitored.
 Focuses on population that are at increased risk of being
affected. Ex :- Targeting of fallen stock for surveillance of
B.S.E.

14.  Continuous watch over endemic diseases
 Trigger a more detailed investigation to explore the
likelihood of a new disease occuring
 Also kwon as syndromic surveillance
 Inexpensive and faster than systems that requires laboratory
confirmation
 First kind of surveillance begun in developing country
Disadvantage:-
 Lack of specificity
(Thrusfield, 2005)

15.  For Epidemiological surveillance program priority should be given
to-
 Disease with higher case fatality rate
 Higher prevalance
 For which country has control measure
 Seriousness and economic importance
 Geographical distribution
 Potencial for spread in the country or region or in the world

16.  Well organized health and Epidemiological services
 Adequately equipped and suitably staffed laboratory
diagnostic services
 A controlled agency to collect, annalyse and disseminate
consolidated information