Evaluating 5.5 Years of Equinella: A Veterinary-Based Voluntary Infectious Disease Surveillance System of Equines in Switzerland

Abstract

Equine health is important in regard to trade, economy, society, and the veterinary, as well as public health. To reduce the burden of equine infectious diseases internationally, it is important to collect, review, and distribute equine health surveillance data as accurate and timely as possible. Within this study, we aimed at providing a comprehensive descriptive analysis of data submitted to Equinella, a voluntary veterinary-based surveillance system of non-notifiable equine infectious diseases and clinical signs, in Switzerland. This was achieved by reviewing the reports submitted since its relaunch in November 2013 and until April 2019, as well as assessing the data validity, activeness of participating veterinarians, coverage of the equine population, geographical representativeness, and timeliness of the system. In total, 630 reports have been submitted. Data validity ranged between 88.2 and 100%. The coverage of Equinella was assessed to be 50.8% of the Swiss equine population. Over the 5.5 years, of all 102 registered veterinarians, 67 (65.7%) submitted at least one report. On average, these veterinarians submitted 1.7 reports per year (median = 4 reports). More recently, in 2018, approximately only one-third [29 (28.4%)] of all registered veterinarians submitted at least one report. However, 59 (57.8%) have responded to the monthly reminder emails to confirm that they have not observed any relevant clinical case to be reported at least once (median number of confirmation per veterinarian = 9 of 12 reminder emails). The incidence of reports varied between cantons (member states of the Swiss confederation). The median timeliness of report submission was found to be 7 days. Overall, Equinella has been receiving reports since its initiation and contributed continuously to the surveillance of infectious diseases in the Swiss equine population and provided an output for the international equine community. Challenges encountered in achieving a higher number of submitted reports and increasing the coverage of the equine population, as well as the overall activeness of veterinarians, require further work. With our study, we provide a comprehensive overview of a veterinary-based voluntary surveillance system for equine health, assessed challenges of such, and suggest concrete improvements with transdisciplinary approaches for similar veterinary-based surveillance systems.

Potential and Challenges of Community-Based Surveillance in Animal Health: A Pilot Study Among Equine Owners in Switzerland

“…Although census studies on the health or diseases of the Swiss equine population are lacking, judging by the low number of official reports on notifiable infectious diseases-which encompassed only five cases of Salmonellosis and one case of Contagious Equine Metritis (CEM) within 1 year (07.14.2018-07.14.2019)-support the argument that at least critical equine infectious diseases are rare (60). Similarly, although a voluntary reporting system of non-notifiable diseases, and therefore not expected to be thoroughly representative of each disease event in the equine population, reports submitted to Equinella have also been rather low in number (34). On the other hand, respondents of the online questionnaire reported as a median to have observed four times clinical signs among their equine within a year.…”

“…The CBS tool Equi-Commun was conceptually designed following the structure of the veterinary-based voluntary surveillance system Equinella (33)(34)(35). Print-screens of the tool user interface are presented in the supplementary materials (Supplementary Figure 1).…”

“…The surveillance of equine health in Switzerland currently includes the mandatory reporting of 17 notifiable diseases according to the Swiss animal health law (Federal Council of Switzerland, 1995). In addition, Equinella (www.equinella.ch), a veterinary-based voluntary surveillance system for clinical signs and equine diseases not notifiable by the Swiss law, is in place (33)(34)(35). During a presentation on Equinella at the 2016 Swiss annual scientific conference and network of equine health research, equine practitioners as well as various stakeholders from the Swiss equine industry arouse the question whether equine owners could also contribute to Equinella.…”

Neurological disease suspected to be caused by tick‐borne encephalitis virus infection in 6 horses in Switzerland

“…However, the small, nonrepresentative number of cases in this study and the absence of any recent prevalence studies in horses or other sentinel animals do not allow any conclusions. Longitudinal studies in horses including both representative sampling to estimate seroprevalence and data from syndromic surveillance systems 45 could be used to address this hypothesis.…”

Outbreak of equine coronavirus disease in adult horses, Switzerland 2021

“…Equinella is a voluntary veterinary‐based online reporting and information platform for the surveillance and early detection of infectious diseases in horses in Switzerland (Özçelik et al., 2020). It consists of timely reporting of clinical signs and syndromes and cases of non‐notifiable equine infectious diseases by veterinary practitioners, as well as data analysis and communication by a central support team (https://www.equinella.ch/; Wohlfender‐Remy et al., 2016).…”