Can routinely recorded reproductive events be used as indicators of disease emergence in dairy cattle? An evaluation of 5 indicators during the emergence of bluetongue virus in France in 2007 and 2008

• Published in: Journal of dairy science Vol. 97; no. 10; pp. 6135 - 6150
• Main Authors: Marceau, Alexis, Madouasse, Aurélien, Lehébel, Anne, van Schaik, Gerdien, Veldhuis, Anouk, Van der Stede, Yves, Fourichon, Christine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.10.2014; American Dairy Science Association
• Subjects: Abortion, Veterinary - epidemiology; Animals; Bluetongue - complications; Bluetongue - epidemiology; bluetongue epidemic; Bluetongue virus - classification; Cattle; Cattle Diseases - diagnosis; Cattle Diseases - epidemiology; Cattle Diseases - virology; disease emergence; Disease Notification - statistics & numerical data; Disease Outbreaks - prevention & control; Disease Outbreaks - veterinary; Female; Fetal Death; France - epidemiology; Gestational Age; Life Sciences; Pregnancy; Reproduction; reproductive indicators; Retrospective Studies; Sheep; syndromic surveillance; Veterinarians; France; reproductive indicators; syndromic surveillance; disease emergence; bluetongue epidemic
• ISSN: 0022-0302; 1525-3198
• DOI: 10.3168/jds.2013-7346

In response to increasing risks of emerging infectious diseases, syndromic surveillance can be a suitable approach to detect outbreaks of such diseases across a large territory in an early phase. To implement a syndromic surveillance system, the primary challenge is to find appropriate health-related data. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether routinely collected dates of reproductive events in dairy cattle could be used to build indicators of health anomalies for syndromic surveillance. The evaluation was performed on data collected in France between 2003 and 2009. First, a set of 5 indicators was proposed to assess several types of reproductive disorders. For each indicator, the demographic coverage over the total number of cattle at risk was analyzed in time and space. Second, the ability to detect an emerging disease in an early phase was retrospectively evaluated during epidemics of bluetongue serotypes 1 and 8 (BTV-1, BTV-8) in France in 2007 and 2008. Reproductive indicators were analyzed weekly during these epidemics for each indicator in each infected French district (16 in 2007 and 50 in 2008 out of 94 districts). The indicators were able to detect the BTV epidemics despite their low demographic coverage on a weekly basis relatively to total number of cattle (median=1.21%; range=0–11.7%). Four indicators related to abortions, late embryonic death, and short gestations were abnormally elevated during both BTV epidemics. Median times to abnormal elevations in these indicators were 20 to 71 d after the first notification of clinical signs of BTV by veterinarians. These results demonstrate that reproduction data can be used as indicators of disease emergences, whereas in the specific case of these BTV epidemics, detection via these indicators was later than clinical detection by veterinarians. The emergence of bluetongue in 2007 in France was associated with gestations that were a few days shorter than expected. A short gestation indicator underwent high elevations relative to prior random fluctuations and was the earliest (out of the 4 indicators) to show abnormal elevations, making it possible to detect this emergence.