A national surveillance system to rapidly detect exposures to biological or chemical weapons does not currently exist. Animals have been shown to be effective sentinels for human health hazards such as threat agents, and they are often more sensitive indicators of these hazards. We propose, therefore, to mine an existing and unique nationwide animal health database and integrate commercially-available software to create a system for veterinary medical disease surveillance of syndromes (VMD-SOS) that will alert public health and national security officials to the presence of man-made or naturally-occurring environmental hazards before the officials would otherwise recognize them. Our approach is to systematically mine health data collected from 2 million pet dogs and cats annually that visit one veterinary practice, Banfield(tm), the Pet Hospital, with more than 300 locations in 44 states. This represents 2% of the approximately 100 million dogs and cats that live in one-third of all households in the U.S. The Banfield(tm) hospitals are paperless with all patient and medical information, including laboratory test results and dispensed drugs, immediately computerized and stored centrally. Banfield(tm) will electronically daily share these records with epidemiologists at Purdue University who with SAS Institute consultants are developing the computer-based algorithms required for the rapid detection of adverse health events in dogs or cats caused by exposure to biological or chemical threat agents. Statistical and GIS-based software will be used to identify significant space-time clusters of acute adverse health events in dogs and cats and to map them to specific geographic locations including neighborhoods. This software-generated information will be available within 24 hours of patient examination and in a format usable for comparison of findings with human health disease patterns. A web-based link will be created for rapid information transfer, allowing collaborating public health and security agencies to query the VMD-SOS and search for suspicious adverse health events in dogs and cats. While the VMD-SOS will initially focus on acute adverse health events, it can also be used to sentinel health events, such as cancer, that might occur with longer latency (e.g. months or years) following exposure to a biological or chemical threat agent.
