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Epidemiology of Infectious Disease

1
Peggy L. Schmidt, DVM, MS, DACVPM and Helen T. Engelke, BVSc, MPVM, DACVPM, MRCVS 2
1 College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA
2 College of Veterinary Medicine, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA

Infectious diseases pose many challenges for veterinarians. infectious disease, such as annual heartworm testing for
How was my patient exposed to the pathogen? When did dogs. In surveillance, when a specified threshold disease
exposure occur? Where did the disease originate? Are level is reached, prevention, control, or eradication meas-
there others infected? Does my patient pose a risk to other ures are triggered and applied at the population level.
pets or people? How can I determine if things are getting Although most small animal clinical practices deal
better or getting worse? Understanding the epidemiology with individual animals rather than owned populations,
of infectious disease can help veterinarians answer these disease monitoring and surveillance activities are no less
and other questions which can lead to better informed deci- important to the clinic population. For example, veteri-
sions which then improve patient outcomes and mitigate narians may erroneously assume low disease prevalence
further spread of disease. Two essential areas of infectious in their area because of historic patterns of disease,
disease epidemiology for the practicing veterinarian thereby preventing early detection of disease in that area.
to understand are performing disease monitoring and As people, animals, and vectors move more freely and
surveillance activities and outbreak investigations. establish new areas of residence, previously rare diseases
may incrementally increase in incidence.
Small animal veterinarians also have a responsibility to
Disease Monitoring and Surveillance participate in population surveillance programs established
for public health. Public health agencies at both the state
Disease monitoring and surveillance are important and federal level maintain a list of reportable diseases which
activities designed to assess the health and disease status include zoonotic diseases that affect companion animals.
of a population of animals. Monitoring and surveillance, While maintaining a focus on human cases of disease, an
while sounding similar to the lay person, are considered increasing number of agencies now include reporting of
epidemiologically distinct terms. Specific diseases, zoonotic disease cases in companion animals. For example,
described syndromes, or general health status are moni- the California Code of Regulations requires veterinarians
tored by veterinarians through the systematic collection to report cases of category A bioterrorism agents, such as
and recording of data. Disease monitoring activities anthrax, plague, and tularemia, as well as zoonotic diseases
provide information which can inform treatment and such as brucellosis (other than B. canis) and rabies to local
prognosis of affected animals, but does not typically health officials. Veterinarians should check routinely with
elicit an intervention at the population level. their state veterinarian and local health departments to
Disease surveillance activities may include collection keep current on reporting regulations related to zoonotic
of the same data used for disease monitoring, but activi- disease and potential bioterrorism agents.
ties are more intensive and purposeful. Surveillance is an Small animal veterinarians may serve on the front line
ongoing, somewhat cyclic event which to be effective for preventing incursions of foreign animal diseases. In
occurs over a considerable period of time. Surveillance 2007, an astute small animal veterinarian in Mississippi
methods can include testing programs for new additions found fly larvae on a 16‐year‐old dog imported from
to populations, such as FeLV testing of new cats entering Trinidad and reported the findings to the Mississippi
an animal shelter or cattery, or annual testing for state veterinarian. Further diagnostics identified the fly

Clinical Small Animal Internal Medicine Volume II, First Edition. Edited by David S. Bruyette.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/bruyette/clinical