Monitoring animal health: the Animal Health Epidemiological Surveillance Platform (ESA)

The aim of the Plateforme nationale d’Epidémiosurveillance en Santé Animale (ESA Platform) is to improve the efficiency of animal disease surveillance and to provide support to surveillance system managers, particularly the State by adopting a “One Health” approach, given the close links between animal health, human health and environmental health.

A multi-partner platform

The ESA Platform is being implemented in partnership by the Direction Générale de l’Alimentation (DGAl), INRAE, the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (ANSES), the Association française des directeurs et cadres des laboratoires vétérinaires publics d’analyses (ADILVA), CIRAD (Centre de coopération international en recherche agronomique pour le développement), the Coopération agricole, the Fédération nationale des chasseurs (FNC), the Fédération nationale des groupements de défense sanitaire (GDS France), the Office français de la biodiversité (OFB), Santé publique France, and the Société nationale des groupements techniques vétérinaires (SNGTV).

The ESA platform is part of a group of 3 platforms alongside the plant health (ESV) and food chain safety (SCA) epidemiosurveillance platforms.

Improving the efficiency of animal health surveillance through a collaborative, multi-partner approach

The ESA platform contributes in particular to detecting the introduction of emerging diseases or the re-emergence of eradicated diseases, and ensuring the efficiency of surveillance systems for health hazards, based in particular on the analysis of results already obtained.

Its missions include:

• developing and promoting methodological guidelines and surveillance tools,
• facilitating access to data by developing robust, interoperable information systems,
• carrying out national and international health monitoring of health hazards threatening animal health and potentially human health (in the case of zoonoses),
• producing epidemiological summaries of the health hazards concerned.

INRAE scientists’ roles in the ESA platform: expertise and supervision

INRAE scientists work at national and international level on the health of farm animals and wildlife and their links with human health, and participate as experts in working groups providing support for the knowledge and organisation of animal and zoonotic pathogen surveillance. Others provide cross-disciplinary support to the various working groups in the fields of epidemiology, statistics, IT and communication. They all contribute to the group’s work on a collegiate basis.