USAHA News
United States Animal Health Association
Contact:   Larry Mark - (703) 451-3954 - ldmark@erols.com


For immediate release:


ALL BUT EIGHT STATES NOW IN NATIONAL DISEASE REPORTING SYSTEM

      HERSHEY, Pa., Nov. 8, 2005 - All but eight states are now actively participating 
in the National Animal Health Reporting System (NAHRS), according to a report 
presented at a meeting of the Committee on Animal Health Information Systems here this 
week.  The committee is a joint effort of the U.S. Animal Health Association (USAHA) 
and the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD).
      
      According to the report, several other states are finalizing their reporting 
procedures.  The 42 participating states represent 86 percent of the cattle, 66 percent of 
the swine, 90 percent of the sheep, 67 percent of the poultry and 84 percent of the catfish 
value of U.S. production for these commodities.
      
      Under NAHRS, state animal health officials report on a monthly basis on the 
occurrence or non-occurrence of specific diseases listed by the World Organization for 
Animal Health (OIE).  The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health 
Inspection Service uses this information in a number of different ways.  The data 
provides the basis for the annual report that the United States is obligated to make to OIE.  
The information also supports trade negotiations and is useful in providing access for 
U.S. animal agriculture products in world markets.
      
      The report indicated an increasing number of states are reporting their disease and 
health information through a web-based NAHRS secure and confidential online reporting 
system.  Participating states have access to all of their own monthly reports, a state 
cumulative report for their state, and a national cumulative report.  Twenty-eight of the 
42 states in the system are using this method of reporting.
      
      In a special scientific report to the committee, Jay Ross of the California Animal 
Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) Laboratory, University of California at Davis, 
described a pilot project in California designed to improve data quality.  Under this 
project, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, hardware and software has been 
developed so that field inspectors can record information during a farm visit and have it 
automatically routed to a number of different place that have a need for it, such as 
diagnostic laboratories and state and federal regulatory offices.
      
      As well as feeding data in, the system also allows for test results from diagnostic 
laboratories to come back to the inspector -- who can pass this information on to the 
farmer -- and to state and federal regulatory offices.  Ross said the system should greatly 
improve the quality of information as well as the efficiency in moving it around since 
data only has to be entered once.
      
      Committee actions included appointment of Dr. Jim Case of California as chair of 
a working group to review the data standards used in the National Animal Identification 
System (NAIS) and to provide recommendations to the NAIS Working Group for their 
consideration.
      
      The committee also unanimously endorsed proposed changes to the NAHRS 
reportable diseases list to make it consistent with recent changes in the World 
Organization of Animal Health (OIE) list of notifiable diseases.  
      
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