Reporting credibility is particularly important to the United States because its prompt scientific publication of disease research and clinical reports are read throughout the world. This makes failure to report disease or fallacious claims of disease freedom particularly damaging when an attempt is made to deny what trading partners already know is true. This was seen as pivotal to the effort to recruit all 50 states into the system. Another key issue is animal identification because as disease detection moves to reliance on slaughter surveillance, there must be individual animal identification to allow tracebacks to origin. The ProMED electronic reporting system, which was inaugurated on the Internet in 1994 to globally monitor emerging infectious diseases, covers humans, animals and plants.
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He said that a multifaceted approach needs to be considered when designing a strategy aimed at determining the absence of disease.