Page 463 - The Veterinary Laboratory and Field Manual 3rd Edition

400 Susan C. Cork

followed up by submission of a written disease report on a standard disease report form (DRF),
provided by the veterinary authority. On the basis of the particular circumstances, the provincial
veterinary officer decides whether it is necessary to conduct an ‘outbreak investigation’. He
may decide to do this himself, if the farm is relatively nearby and he has access to a vehicle,
or if the disease event involves a large number of animals and appears to be spreading rapidly,
or, under other circumstances, he may decide to ask the private service provider to perform
the outbreak investigation on behalf of the veterinary authority, under the terms of the sanitary
mandate contract. An outbreak investigation involves both forward and backward tracing of the
disease event as well as a more detailed on-farm investigation, involving, where appropriate,
the conduct of a post-mortem examination and the collection and submission of appropriate
laboratory samples according to a provisional or differential diagnosis.
Under such a contract the terms of reference define the exact scope of the services to
be performed, the level of remuneration and the conditions of payment. The scheme is now
being expanded to include the contracting of other functions such as the involvement of private
service providers in providing vaccination services under national disease prevention or control
schemes and collecting blood/serum samples for active disease surveillance. Consideration
is also being given to contract out other public functions such as providing extension services
and undertaking local meat inspection.
A partnership of this type between government veterinary services and private animal
health service providers not only helps the state veterinary authority to perform its functions
more efficiently, it also enhances the financial sustainability of private service providers, often
working in an environment where farmers are either not able or sometimes unwilling to invest
in animal health services, to the extent that these can provide a satisfactory level of income
for the service provider. Such a system can result in the establishment of a robust surveillance
network, where most suspected occurrences of notifiable diseases are reported and investi-
gated to the point where a laboratory diagnosis is made.
This substantially improves the quality of epidemiological information available for accurate
disease notification and for planning of national disease prevention and control programmes.

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