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EFSA regularly collects data from Member States on animal diseases such as African swine fever, lumpy skin disease, and avian influenza, which are then analysed for risk assessment purposes.
For this purpose, EFSA has over the last years carried out several data collections and gathered specific information on outbreaks, surveillance activities and concerned animal populations (i.e. poultry, domestic pigs, cattle and wildlife such as wild boar). EFSA aims to work together closely with Member States in order to (i) reduce the Member States’ manual input of the data to be submitted to EFSA; (ii) avoid double reporting to EFSA; (iii) provide the Member States with tools to produce automatically their own draft national reports on animal health and surveillance in a protected environment to ensure data protection; (iv) increase the quality of the data received from the Member States; and (v) shorten the time to retrieve up‐to‐date data, relevant for risk assessment purposes.
However these data are often difficult to compare and analyse because they are collected using different methods and reported in different languages. EFSA launched a project called SIGMA. It is important to highlight that the SIGMA – Animal Disease Data Model (σ‐ADM) focuses on data which are known to be already collected by several Member States under different legal frameworks and for different purposes.
The proposed approach automatically translates data currently collected by Member States into a common language and stores them logically – like books on the shelves of a library.
The version presented in this report, will be subject to modifications and updates derived from the feedback during the implementation phase.
Gabriele Zancanaro, who manages the project, said: “The approach aims to deliver the first structured library of information on animal diseases. This will save a lot of time and resources for Member States that submit data to EFSA and will allow EFSA to produce scientific assessments of higher quality in a shorter time.”
Data providers from Italy and Spain are already engaged in the project. Those who want to take part can send an email to alpha@efsa.europa.eu
Monday January 21, 2019/ EFSA/ European Union.
http://www.efsa.europa.eu
