Institute of Animal Pathology, Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Veterinary Public Health Institute, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Prev Vet Med. 2021 Feb;187:105235. doi: 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2020.105235. Epub 2020 Dec 15.
Pathology data have been reported to be important for surveillance, as they are crucial for correctly recognizing and identifying new or re-emerging diseases in animal populations. However, there are no reports in the literature of necropsy data being compared or complemented with other data. In our study, we compared cattle necropsy reports extracted from 3 laboratories with the Swiss fallen stock data and clinical data collected by the association of Swiss Cattle Breeders. The objective was to assess the completeness, validity and representativeness of the necropsy data, as well as evaluate potential factors for necropsy submission and how they can benefit animal health surveillance. Our results showed that, on average, 1% of Swiss cattle that die are submitted for post-mortem examinations. However, different factors influence cattle necropsy submissions, such as the age of the animal, the geographical location and the number of sick and/or dead animals on the farm. There was a median of five animals reported sick and two animals reported dead within 30 days prior to a necropsy submission, providing quantitative evidence of a correlation between on farm morbidity/mortality and post-mortem examination. Our results also showed that necropsy data can help improve the accuracy and completeness of health data for surveillance systems. In this study, we were able to demonstrate the importance of veterinary pathology data for AHS by providing quantitative evidence that necropsied animals are indicative of farms with important disease problems and are therefore critically important for surveillance. Furthermore, thanks to the amount of information provided by combined data sources, the epidemiology (e.g. season, geographic region, risk factors) of potential diseases can be analysed more precisely and help supporting animal health surveillance systems.
病理学数据对于监测至关重要，因为它们对于正确识别和发现动物群体中新出现或再次出现的疾病至关重要。然而，文献中没有报道将尸检数据与其他数据进行比较或补充。在我们的研究中，我们比较了从 3 个实验室提取的牛尸检报告与瑞士死亡牲畜数据以及瑞士奶牛养殖者协会收集的临床数据。目的是评估尸检数据的完整性、有效性和代表性，评估尸检提交的潜在因素以及它们如何有益于动物健康监测。我们的研究结果表明，瑞士死亡的牛中，平均有 1%被提交进行剖检。然而，不同因素影响牛尸检提交，如动物的年龄、地理位置以及农场中患病和/或死亡动物的数量。在提交尸检之前的 30 天内，报告有中位数为 5 只患病动物和 2 只死亡动物，这提供了农场发病率/死亡率与剖检之间存在相关性的定量证据。我们的研究结果还表明，尸检数据有助于提高监测系统健康数据的准确性和完整性。在这项研究中，我们通过提供定量证据证明了兽医病理学数据对于 AHS 的重要性，即接受剖检的动物表明农场存在重要的疾病问题，因此对监测至关重要。此外，由于综合数据源提供的信息量，潜在疾病的流行病学（例如季节、地理区域、风险因素）可以更精确地进行分析，并有助于支持动物健康监测系统。
