Epidemic Intelligence Webinars: Surveillance for animal health in the region

Epidemic Intelligence Webinars: Event-Based Surveillance for Animal Health in the Asia-Pacific (Sessions 1 and 2)

Epidemic intelligence conducted at WOAH is defined as the cycle of organised and standardised collection, analysis, and interpretation of information from multiple sources (official and non-official) to detect, verify, and investigate potential animal health risks promptly, in accordance with WOAH’s mandate when relevant.

This work is systematic or conducted on an ad hoc basis depending on the source of information. Epidemic intelligence includes risk monitoring and risk assessment, allowing for prompt and effective risk management and communication while fostering multisectoral collaboration via a One Health approach.

Epidemic intelligence aims to ensure a timely response, based on adequate risk assessments with recommendations on appropriate health measures.

Regional progress

At the regional level, WOAH in the Asia-Pacific has been making great progress by initiating a “Supporting Early Threat Warning” project to strengthen animal health surveillance and transparency across the region. This is possible through a voluntary contribution from the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Australia DAFF) under the WOAH 7th Strategic Plan.

These efforts, primarily through the implementation of WOAH’s event-based surveillance activity (often referred to as ‘rumour tracking’), have yielded substantial results in early threat detection and response.

Focus and objectives

In this context, we organised the ‘Epidemic Intelligence Webinars: Event-Based Surveillance for Animal Health in the Asia-Pacific (Sessions 1 and 2)’. These webinars focused on ways to enhance the understanding and capacity of targeted focal points in the region. This will lead to a better understanding of how to effectively utilise epidemic intelligence and leverage its benefits for event-based surveillance, thereby improving the sensitivity of domestic and regional surveillance systems.

The result will be timely and accurate disease monitoring, identification, reporting and response. The webinars also provided a platform for WOAH Members and partners to share experiences and best practices for epidemic intelligence work in the region. Finally, they aimed to enhance connection, collaboration and networking among all participants.

The webinars were delivered across two sessions covering separate topics, with the first completed on 27 August 2026 and the second on 29 September 2026. The agendas are updated below.