Abstract
BackgroundWildlife rehabilitation centers routinely gather health-related data from diverse species. Their capability to signal the occurrence of emerging pathogens and improve traditional surveillance remains largely unexplored. This paper assessed the utility for syndromic surveillance of raptors admitted to The Raptor Center (TRC) to signal circulation of West Nile Virus (WNV) in Minnesota between 1990 and 2014. An exhaustive descriptive analysis using grouping time series structures and models of interrupted times series was conducted for indicator subsets.ResultsA total of 13,080 raptors were monitored. The most representative species were red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, Cooper’s hawks, American kestrels and bald eagles. Results indicated that temporal patterns of accessions at the TRC changed distinctively after the incursion of WNV in 2002. The frequency of hawks showing WNV-like signs increased almost 3 times during July and August, suggesting that monitoring of hawks admitted to TRC with WNV-like signs could serve as an indicator of WNV circulation. These findings were also supported by the results of laboratory diagnosis.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that monitoring of data routinely collected by wildlife rehabilitation centers has the potential to signal the spread of pathogens that may affect wild, domestic animals and humans, thus supporting the early detection of disease incursions in a region and monitoring of disease trends. Ultimately, data collected in rehabilitation centers may provide insights to efficiently allocate financial and human resources on disease prevention and surveillance.
Highlights
Wildlife rehabilitation centers routinely gather health-related data from diverse species
Exploratory descriptive analysis A total of 16,595 raptors from 37 different states were admitted to The Raptor Center (TRC) between 1990 and 2014, our analysis focused only on admissions from the state of MN (n = 13,080; 78.8%)
The most frequent clinical signs observed in these raptors were systemic disorders, neurological and ocular signs; followed by integumentary and Discussion Our results demonstrate that raptor rehabilitation data, hawks, shows marked temporal differences before and after the incursion of West Nile Virus (WNV) in MN
Summary
Wildlife rehabilitation centers routinely gather health-related data from diverse species. Their capability to signal the occurrence of emerging pathogens and improve traditional surveillance remains largely unexplored. Wild animals play a key role in the transmission of many infectious diseases into humans by serving as reservoirs for important pathogens such as West Nile virus (WNV), avian influenza virus (AIV), and Lyme disease. There are systems in place for monitoring infectious diseases in humans and some domestic animals, as well as some programs for specific diseases in free-ranging wildlife, there is currently no comprehensive, integrated strategy for monitoring wildlife health issues in the United States [5]. Sample collection is currently limited to expensive active surveillance activities, often requiring trapping of animals, or convenience or passive sampling of hunted animals or wildlife submitted to public health or wildlife agencies [6]
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