title: Investigating the potential of reported cattle mortality data in Switzerland for syndromic surveillance.
abstract: Systems for the identification and registration of cattle have gradually been receiving attention for use in syndromic surveillance, a relatively recent approach for the early detection of infectious disease outbreaks. Real or near real-time monitoring of deaths or stillbirths reported to these systems offer an opportunity to detect temporal or spatial clusters of increased mortality that could be caused by an infectious disease epidemic. In Switzerland, such data are recorded in the "Tierverkehrsdatenbank" (TVD). To investigate the potential of the Swiss TVD for syndromic surveillance, 3 years of data (2009-2011) were assessed in terms of data quality, including timeliness of reporting and completeness of geographic data. Two time-series consisting of reported on-farm deaths and stillbirths were retrospectively analysed to define and quantify the temporal patterns that result from non-health related factors. Geographic data were almost always present in the TVD data; often at different spatial scales. On-farm deaths were reported to the database by farmers in a timely fashion; stillbirths were less timely. Timeliness and geographic coverage are two important features of disease surveillance systems, highlighting the suitability of the TVD for use in a syndromic surveillance system. Both time series exhibited different temporal patterns that were associated with non-health related factors. To avoid false positive signals, these patterns need to be removed from the data or accounted for in some way before applying aberration detection algorithms in real-time. Evaluating mortality data reported to systems for the identification and registration of cattle is of value for comparing national data systems and as a first step towards a European-wide early detection system for emerging and re-emerging cattle diseases.
authors.affiliation: Veterinary Public Health Institute, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Schwarzenburgstrasse 155, 3003 Bern, Switzerland. Electronic address: rahel.struchen@vetsuisse.unibe.ch.
authors.forename: Rahel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Struchen
authors.affiliation: Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, Schwarzenburgstrasse 155, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reist
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Socinstrasse 57, 4051 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jakob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zinsstag
authors.affiliation: Veterinary Public Health Institute, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Schwarzenburgstrasse 155, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Flavie
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vial
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D002418:Cattle Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring / Q000662:veterinary*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Animal health surveillance; Cattle mortality; Early detection; Syndromic surveillance; Time-series analysis