Development of an Integrated Wild Bird Surveillance Database

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: This project is directed towards increasing the surveillance capacity of the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DoD-GEIS). DoD-GEIS is designed to strengthen the prevention of, surveillance of and response to infectious diseases that: 1) Are a threat to military personnel and families, 2) Reduce medical readiness or 3) Present a risk to U.S. national security. The Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Avian Influenza has the potential to negatively impact these areas of concern, and therefore considerable efforts have been made to counter this threat through the DoD Influenza Surveillance Program. This program focuses on human specimens submitted to DoD facilities, as well as monitoring to provide advance warning of national and international disease threats. However, the historic reservoir of avian influenza types has been in wild birds, and many investigators feel that the monitoring of these populations can play a valuable role in identifying new outbreaks of H5N1, as well as possible emerging variants of this virus. This project will build on existing programs for avian influenza surveillance in wild birds, and offer an integrated data resource that can provide information not currently captured by DoD-GEIS. Furthermore, taken to the next step, the WISDOM system has the potential to serve as a basis for a comprehensive national and international wildlife disease surveillance system. In addition to H5N1, other recent emerging infectious diseases, including West Nile Virus disease, SARS, and monkeypox, have a wildlife component, and it has been suggested that this relationship exists with a high percentage of potential emerging diseases. Therefore, it seems clear that careful attention to diseases in these animals will be a worthwhile addition to DoD surveillance activities.

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APPROACH: The GAINS (Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance), HEDDS (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza early Detection Data System) and SEANET applications are based on databases that vary in complexity and capacity, although they are derived from a basic structure originally designed by WDIN (Wildlife Disease Information Node). The GAINS system is now the most complex and will serve as the basis for WISDOM (Wildlife Information System for Disease Observation and Monitoring). The overarching concept of the earlier versions of these data structures were based on an Event, Groups at that event, Animals and Species identifiable at the event, and subsequent to each of those tables, e.g. Location information, Procedural information, Specimen information, and Tests on specimen. The new data structure of WISDOM has taken these concepts and normalized the data so that there are no limits on the numbers of each in a relational hierarchical structure. This new structure has been designed so that items can be re-used, as in frequently visited sampling sites, groups or individuals. This recording of re-visits to sites, groups or individuals allows us to provide historic activities at each of these levels (the complete history of an animal, the history of disease outbreaks at a specific location, etc.). Standardization of terminology for the WISDOM database will be implemented by the Veterinary Terminology Services Laboratory (VTSL) at Virginia Tech. This will be a two step process: analysis and subset creation. Beyond the initial work, plans must be made for maintenance of the standardized SNOMED (Systematized Nomenclature of Human Medicine) subsets that were created. As veterinary medicine grows and programs are expanded, new terminology is needed. The subsets must grow and change as needs arise. These changes must be made available to the surveillance database system. As these updates are implemented in the surveillance database system, a historical record of content changes must be maintained so that data stored over time can be accurately compared with current data. In order to map the existing HEDDS and SEANET database content to the WISDOM framework, the data concepts will be compared from database to database. Once the concepts are identified, analyzed and cross-matched with the WISDOM structure, the inserts can be created rather systematically in order to map the data. Data export will also be an important component of this project. Through the contacts and agreements already established with the GAINS program, export format requirements for collaborators will also be determined, and contacts with other civilian, military, and international agencies will be pursued to assess their interest in activating a data stream from the newly constructed wild bird surveillance database.