Outbreak of equine coronavirus disease in adult horses, Switzerland 2021.

Coronaviruses are causing severe respiratory and enteric diseases in humans and animals. Here, we report an outbreak of equine coronavirus disease in adult horses, detected by a voluntary syndromic surveillance scheme for equine diseases in Switzerland. This scheme allowed a rapid concerted action to diagnose and contain the disease.

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

Animal owners' potential to observe and report clinical signs, as the persons with the closest contact to their animals, is an often neglected source of information in surveillance. Allowing community members other than health care professionals, such as animal owners, to report health events can contribute to close current surveillance gaps and enhance early detection. In the present study, we tested a community-based surveillance (CBS) approach in the equine community in Switzerland. We aimed at revealing the attitudes and intentions of equine owners toward reporting clinical signs by making use of an online questionnaire. We further set up and operated an online CBS tool, named Equi-Commun. Finally, we investigated potential reasons for the lack of its use by applying qualitative telephone interviews. The majority of the respondents of the online questionnaire (65.5%, 707/1,078) answered that they could see themselves reporting clinical observations of their equine. The multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that French-speaking equine owners and those belonging to the positive attitude cluster are more likely to report to a CBS tool. Equi-Commun operated between October 2018 and December 2019 yet received only four reports. With the addition of qualitative interviews, we identified three critical, interlinked issues that may have led to the non-use of Equi-Commun within the Swiss equine community: (1) for successfully implementing CBS, the need for surveillance within the community of interest must be given; (2) the respective population under surveillance, here the equine, needs to show enough clinical cases for owners to be able to maintain the memory of an existing tool and its possible use; and (3) targeted and high effort communication of the system is key for its success. While CBS relying only on lay animal owners, complementary to existing surveillance systems, could potentially provide a good proxy of timely surveillance data, it is questionable whether the added value of generated surveillance knowledge is in balance with efforts necessary to implement a successful system. With this study, we showcased both the potential and challenges of CBS in animal health, as this may be of relevance and guidance for future initiatives.

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

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.