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Review
. 2017 May:203:40-48.
doi: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2017.02.007. Epub 2017 Feb 17.

The use of animals as a surveillance tool for monitoring environmental health hazards, human health hazards and bioterrorism

Jacqueline Pei Shan Neo  1 , Boon Huan Tan  2
Affiliations
Review

The use of animals as a surveillance tool for monitoring environmental health hazards, human health hazards and bioterrorism

Jacqueline Pei Shan Neo et al. Vet Microbiol. 2017 May.

Abstract

This review discusses the utilization of wild or domestic animals as surveillance tools for monitoring naturally occurring environmental and human health hazards. Besides providing early warning to natural hazards, animals can also provide early warning to societal hazards like bioterrorism. Animals are ideal surveillance tools to humans because they share the same environment as humans and spend more time outdoors than humans, increasing their exposure risk. Furthermore, the biologically compressed lifespans of some animals may allow them to develop clinical signs more rapidly after exposure to specific pathogens. Animals are an excellent channel for monitoring novel and known pathogens with outbreak potential given that more than 60 % of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate as zoonoses. This review attempts to highlight animal illnesses, deaths, biomarkers or sentinel events, to remind human and veterinary public health programs that animal health can be used to discover, monitor or predict environmental health hazards, human health hazards, or bioterrorism. Lastly, we hope that this review will encourage the implementation of animals as a surveillance tool by clinicians, veterinarians, ecosystem health professionals, researchers and governments.

Keywords: Animal health surveillance; Animal sentinel; Bioterrorism; Environmental health hazard; Human health hazard.

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