Homeland Security: An Overall Strategy Is Needed to Strengthen Disease Surveillance in Livestock and Poultry
Released: 2013-05-21T00:00:00

Letter

Background

According to international animal health authorities, disease surveillance in livestock and poultry has as its main purpose the early detection of diseases and disease outbreaks. It also plays an important role during outbreaks, such as monitoring how fast a disease is spreading through animal populations and in what direction. Disease surveillance is also critical in determining how effective efforts have been in controlling and eradicating disease from a particular area or animal population and in recognizing when that disease no longer poses an immediate threat to animal or human health. Further, surveillance supports international trade, allowing officials to certify that animals are healthy and safe to move across borders. Disease surveillance in livestock and poultry is particularly important because billions of cattle, swine, poultry, and other animals used for food are annually moved from place to place over long distances throughout the food supply chain—from wherever producers are located and then to feedlots and local, regional, and even overseas markets and slaughterhouses. Thus, to prevent the spread of contagious diseases and protect the welfare of healthy herds, animal health authorities often restrict the movement of animals. Such restrictions can lead, paradoxically, to the destruction of large numbers of uninfected animals and substantial economic losses.

Federal, state, tribal, and industry entities share responsibility for carrying out disease surveillance in livestock and poultry (see app. I). Under the national animal health reporting system, APHIS typically works with states to monitor, control, and eradicate certain animal diseases. According to APHIS documents and state veterinary officials, such activities include, for example, issuing guidance on how to identify and report particular diseases of national concern, developing vaccination programs, and providing additional staff to work alongside state investigators tracking outbreaks of infectious diseases. To manage these reportable diseases, APHIS has worked closely with the states and industry over the past decades to eradicate them by, for example, providing states funding and guidance. According to APHIS documents, the agency has made significant gains in eradicating reportable diseases such as tuberculosis and brucellosis, which have historically plagued American livestock. State animal health officials work closely with industry and with state-operated veterinary diagnostic laboratories to monitor and protect the health of livestock and poultry within state boundaries, including regulating the entry of livestock and poultry into their states. Veterinarians accredited under APHIS’s National Veterinary Accreditation Program are directed to report to APHIS the suspected presence of selected domestic and foreign animal diseases that can cause significant economic, trade, or public health consequences (see app. II for a list of such diseases in swine).

Some states also require veterinarians to directly report to state animal health authorities the incidence of diseases that are not reportable nationally.

Industry is an important source of health data on livestock and poultry, privately maintaining that information and reporting it to state and federal officials when a reportable disease is suspected. Veterinarians working for livestock and poultry producers collect tissue and blood samples from animals and send them to a veterinary laboratory for diagnosis; these veterinarians are the first line of defense in disease surveillance, whether for detecting diseases or monitoring a disease during an outbreak. The laboratory returns test results confidentially to the veterinarian or person submitting the sample, unless the test results indicate the presence of a federal or state reportable disease, in which case those test results are reported to appropriate federal or state authorities. When a veterinarian suspects the presence of a foreign animal disease in a herd, the veterinarian contacts state and federal animal health authorities to take a sample and send it to APHIS’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories to confirm the diagnosis (see fig. 1). If state and federal animal health officials approve, a National Animal Health Laboratory Network laboratory may conduct initial screening for certain foreign animal diseases. But a sample is also sent to APHIS’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories to confirm the diagnosis.

Contagious diseases with the potential to harm the economy and human health may spread among livestock and poultry, and in some cases be transmitted to humans, through various methods. For example, classical swine fever may be transmitted from an infected swine to another directly through nose-to-nose and sexual contact or indirectly through a person or object, such as a farmhand’s clothing. Swine may also contract the disease through exposure to or consumption of contaminated pork products, which typically occurs when swine are fed uncooked garbage or meat products from a source outside the United States. The classical swine fever virus is known to survive in pork meat for up to 180 days. Although this disease affects only swine, other diseases in swine have the capacity to affect humans. For example, swine can become infected not only with swine influenza viruses but with human and avian viruses as well. According to recent influenza research, evidence exists that influenza viruses can be transmitted through the air between swine and humans and that either host can be contagious before showing symptoms of illness. When a swine is infected with more than one influenza virus at the same time, the viruses can exchange genetic material, thereby creating a new influenza virus, which may vary in its virulence and transmissibility between and within species (see app. III).

USDA’s APHIS Is Broadening Its Approach to Disease Surveillance in Livestock and Poultry and Faces Challenges in Doing So

To better adapt to the changing landscape of human and animal diseases (including the rapid global movement of humans, animals, and food products), APHIS has begun to shift its disease-specific surveillance approach to (1) monitor the overall health of livestock and poultry and (2) improve its ability to analyze health information about livestock and poultry. APHIS faces several challenges in carrying out this new approach, including obtaining new data from current and additional sources and determining how best to deploy declining resources, given increasing fiscal constraints.

APHIS’s New Approach Monitors Overall Health of Livestock and Poultry and Seeks to Improve Collection and Analysis of Information

As funding for disease eradication programs changes, and the global landscape of animal and human diseases produces new threats, APHIS has since fiscal year 2012 begun broadening its previous disease-by- disease approach to one in which the agency monitors the overall health of certain livestock and poultry species. APHIS’s intention is to examine the nation’s livestock herds and poultry flocks in detail, using diverse sources of data, to better detect, monitor, and control diseases that may be new or reemerging, including domestic diseases of economic importance. Before its new approach, APHIS directed its programs for disease surveillance in livestock and poultry toward preventing the introduction of certain foreign animal diseases and to monitoring, detecting, and eradicating other reportable diseases already present in domestic herds. Information about nonreportable diseases, including diseases that were new or reemerging, was not always captured by the agency’s disease surveillance efforts.

According to APHIS documentation, beginning in fiscal year 2010, the agency proposed its first effort to broaden disease surveillance in livestock and poultry: monitoring the health of the nation’s hog, or swine, herds. This program—called Comprehensive and Integrated Swine Surveillance—identifies new sources and types of data on diseases in swine, among other things. Since fiscal year 2012, the agency has been receiving funding on a species, or commodity, basis, rather than on a disease-specific basis; thus, the agency’s swine health activities, including surveillance, were provided dedicated funding for the first time that year at $23 million. To begin addressing multiple and evolving information needs about swine health under the program, the agency plans to draw new data from sites where swine typically converge in large numbers or where information on swine health can be easily collected. In planning documents, APHIS officials said that they plan to collect data from farms where swine are raised, markets where they are sold, slaughter facilities, and veterinary diagnostic laboratories, among other sites (see fig. 2). They also plan to collect data from feral swine, which may harbor diseases transmissible to domestic herds. Many of these sites are already monitored to some extent, but APHIS officials said they intend to expand how the sites are used in the future under the program. For example, APHIS has been monitoring for the presence of pseudorabies at slaughter facilities, but it has proposed monitoring these facilities for a range of other diseases as well, including classical swine fever. According to agency officials, APHIS is also considering potential new information sources, such as data that states collect on diseases of regional concern, some of which fall outside the category of reportable diseases. APHIS has begun to take some of its planned actions under this program, but many of the planned actions require further coordination and concurrence from industry and states before they can be implemented.

In addition to making better use of existing data sources and identifying new ones, APHIS and the Department of Homeland Security launched a 9-month pilot program designed to use volunteer veterinarians to assist in detecting diseases early, including new and emerging diseases. Scheduled to conclude in May 2013, according to Homeland Security officials, this pilot program involves a number of participating private veterinarians, working in a small area of West Texas and New Mexico, who are using electronic tablets to record and submit to APHIS data on syndromes they observe in livestock herds, that is, data on the collective signs and symptoms of sickness that animals exhibit. According to a statement of work for this program, such information has not been systematically collected and reported before, and this pilot offers the opportunity to gauge the usefulness of such information.

Under this new approach, APHIS also plans to improve its ability to analyze information—collected from numerous sources for different purposes and in different formats—on the overall health of livestock and poultry, by standardizing how the information is reported and improving how the data are linked electronically. Because data standards vary greatly among APHIS’s numerous information systems, and within individual systems, APHIS has limited ability to analyze and aggregate information to generate a complete national picture of livestock and poultry health. To address these limitations, APHIS in 2009 developed a multiyear information technology plan to restructure and modernize how the agency collects and manages information for detecting and monitoring diseases in livestock and poultry, including new and emerging disease threats. The technology plan’s ultimate goal is to develop a centralized information repository containing health information about livestock and poultry from the most relevant internal and external databases and employing standardized data entry protocols.

The initial phase of this effort to improve efficiency and data analysis is already under way. APHIS in January 2013 replaced its outdated Generic Disease Database, which contained information on outbreaks of domestic diseases, with a new database management system, called Surveillance Collaboration Services, which establishes standardized data fields and codes. APHIS also plans to electronically link this new database system with, among others, its existing Emergency Management Response System, which contains information derived from investigations of suspected foreign animal diseases, and Laboratory Messaging Services, which receives and records diagnostic test results for selected diseases of national concern. Estimated at $5.4 million, the first phase of APHIS’s technology modernization effort—the deployment of the Surveillance Collaboration Services system—is scheduled to be completed 1 year ahead of its original 2014 target date, APHIS officials said.

APHIS Faces Challenges Implementing Its New Approach

APHIS faces key challenges in carrying out this new approach to disease surveillance in livestock and poultry, in particular, gathering data from current and additional sources, such as from industry and from state animal health authorities, and determining how best to deploy declining resources.

Obtaining new data on livestock and poultry health from current and additional sources is likely to be a challenge for various reasons, including (1) industry concerns over the confidentiality of animal health data and (2) the sufficiency of collected data.

APHIS’s ability to gather new data will likely be hindered by industry concerns that some health information on livestock and poultry should be kept confidential and not shared. For example, industry representatives and state animal health authorities we spoke with said they would not be willing to share information about the health of their herds beyond what is required by federal regulation because the information, including information on the incidence of influenza in swine, might be made public and affect sales. These officials cited as an example a 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak in humans, which was genetically linked to an influenza virus found in swine and led to millions of dollars in lost sales to the pork industry because people mistakenly believed they could become ill from eating pork. Moreover, state animal health officials from one state reported that their state laws prohibit them from releasing information they collect on the health of their state’s livestock and poultry unless the information is required to be reported by federal law to control an immediate threat to overall animal or public health.

Moreover, APHIS may have difficulty obtaining complete data identifying individual livestock and poultry and their locations. Generally, the states, not the federal government, maintain animal identification and location data, in part because of industry data confidentiality concerns, according to APHIS documents. APHIS officials told us that most states will share this information during animal disease outbreaks, but some do not routinely share the information for surveillance purposes. This reluctance to routinely share could affect the agency’s ability to generate a national picture of diseased and at-risk animals and their locations—information essential to effectively monitor and control livestock and poultry diseases, including new and emerging diseases. In July 2007, we reported that, for a number of reasons, APHIS faced serious challenges implementing a comprehensive national animal identification system. In January 2013, APHIS published a rule establishing national standards for identifying animals and documenting their movement that, with some exceptions, made it mandatory for livestock and poultry under federal regulation that are moved across state lines to have official identification and documentation. The new rule addresses some limitations of the old system, giving states some discretion in administering the program, including managing information required and maintained on animals entering their borders.

The flexibility given to states with regard to how they maintain animal identification information under the new rule also poses challenges for APHIS to obtain information effectively and in a standardized manner. For example, states may use APHIS’s approved types of animal identification, including animal identification numbers, and approved official documentation, such as the interstate certificate of veterinary inspection, but they can also use alternative systems. An APHIS document on animal disease traceability says that although states can use a number of animal identification systems, they must follow certain standards, but states need not abide by APHIS’s suggested standards for documentation. In addition, states may track data in APHIS’s animal identification and movement information systems or may maintain their own databases instead, and these databases may not be compatible with APHIS’s systems. According to APHIS officials, standards are being developed to ensure future compatibility.

APHIS will likely face the challenge of gathering sufficient data to monitor diseases, because agency officials and pork producers differ in their views on how much collected information is enough to successfully identify potential disease threats. For example, APHIS officials reported that commercial producers voluntarily and anonymously shared nearly 9,400 swine samples with APHIS’s National Swine Influenza Virus Surveillance Program in 2012, a 72 percent increase over the 5,460 samples submitted in 2011. But agency officials and pork producers disagree somewhat about whether collected data are sufficient to allow the program to successfully identify potential disease threats. About 66 million swine are raised on 68,300 U.S. farms. Agency animal and human health researchers have questioned whether enough swine samples and information are being submitted to APHIS’s influenza surveillance program. Influenza researchers also explained to us that because the data are submitted anonymously and cannot be linked with a particular farm or herd, they cannot be sure that the samples commercial producers provide to APHIS are representative of the viruses currently circulating domestically. Several pork producers, in contrast, told us they believe that the data APHIS has collected have been sufficient.

APHIS also faces the challenge of obtaining sufficient data to monitor serious diseases that could spread to domestic herds and people from the nation’s sizable and widespread feral swine population. Federal and state animal health officials and pork producers told us that feral swine pose a significant risk because they carry diseases that have been eradicated in domestic herds, such as brucellosis and pseudorabies, which, if reintroduced, could hinder hog movement and trade. According to APHIS documents, feral swine are also susceptible to contracting and transmitting foreign animal diseases because they are highly mobile, at times crossing the border with Mexico and eating out of landfills, where they might encounter contaminated garbage. The introduction of a foreign animal disease like classical swine fever could close export markets. Feral swine are also carriers of zoonotic diseases, such as brucellosis and influenza, which can infect humans and other species. Feral swine are most likely to affect small backyard farms with little security, but they may also attempt to infiltrate larger, more secure operations.

Unlike domestic herds, feral swine are not easily accessible to veterinarians and wildlife biologists responsible for managing populations and monitoring diseases, and, according to federal and state officials, even when feral swine are located, they can be very difficult to capture. In addition, the population is growing rapidly. According to APHIS data, feral swine were present in 36 states as of 2010, their population distribution and range having increased from 28 states in 2004 and 17 states in 1982 (see fig. 3). Officials from APHIS’s Wildlife Services told us that they have been sampling approximately 3,000 feral swine per year and testing for various diseases, including influenza, pseudorabies, brucellosis, and classical swine fever. Nevertheless, given an estimated nationwide population of 5 million feral swine, officials said that they would need to test significantly more animals per year to accurately portray the extent of diseases in this population.

Declining resources—funding constraints and a shortage of veterinarians—also pose a challenge to broadening disease surveillance and improving analysis of livestock and poultry health data, according to APHIS officials.

Federal and state animal health officials told us that decreased funding to USDA is a challenge to APHIS’s disease surveillance efforts in livestock and poultry. According to agency documentation, the budget for APHIS recently decreased by about 14 percent for fiscal years 2008 through 2013. As a result, APHIS has seen funding for key components of its disease surveillance efforts decline as well, according to agency officials. For example, funding for federal-state cooperative agreements for monitoring animal health has decreased by 44 percent, from $46 million in 2009 to $25 million in 2012. We previously reported that state officials in agriculture and wildlife departments said that they depend largely or completely on federal funds to support biosurveillance efforts and that their capabilities to carry out disease surveillance and other biosurveillance activities would be limited without funding from federal grants and cooperative agreements. Funding for APHIS’s National Wildlife Disease Surveillance and Emergency Response System, responsible for disease surveillance in feral swine, has been reduced by 71 percent, or $16 million, from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2012. Additionally, funding for other disease surveillance programs has declined or remains uncertain. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services provided a one-time $25.75 million in funding to APHIS in 2009 to extend the agency’s prevention and surveillance capabilities for influenza virus in swine. Because of a recent increase in the number of submitted samples from swine, however, APHIS officials project that funding will run out by fiscal year 2015 or earlier. As a result, APHIS officials said, the agency might not be able to continue to offer stakeholders viral diagnostic testing or genetic sequencing services using this funding. USDA officials told us they are uncertain whether future funding will exist for these activities.

In addition, state officials participating in USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network have reported that insufficient and declining funding is reducing their ability to effectively and rapidly identify, report, and respond to an outbreak of a serious disease, such as foot-and-mouth disease. For example, officials from member laboratories have reported difficulties maintaining essential diagnostic personnel and expertise. The network receives funding from APHIS for operational support, including testing, equipment maintenance, training assays, and travel. APHIS and USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture also provide support for infrastructure, including personnel and maintaining and developing information technology. According to APHIS officials, funding from APHIS to pay for testing for certain diseases has decreased even though overall funding has increased somewhat since 2007. In addition, funding for laboratory infrastructure provided by the National Institute for Food and Agriculture has declined by 40 percent. Laboratory officials told us that this drop forced some laboratories to cut their staffing levels, reducing the number of highly trained personnel who can perform the biological tests needed to rapidly identify, report, and respond to diseases. Member laboratory officials also told us that working with an outdated National Animal Health Laboratory Network information system limited the efficiency with which data generated from laboratory testing can be transmitted to APHIS.

According to federal and state officials, a decrease in the number of APHIS field veterinarians has also reduced the agency’s ability to carry out critical disease surveillance activities effectively. At the time of our review, officials in each of the four states we visited reported a reduced number of field veterinarians as a primary challenge to effective collection of health data from livestock and poultry. Some officials explained that, in particular, too few veterinarians affected veterinarians’ ability to stay in frequent contact with farms, such as small farms having little biosecurity and a high risk of their animals’ contracting serious diseases. For example, officials in one state reported a vacant position for the state’s primary APHIS field veterinarian. Another state official reported that even as livestock and poultry imports have increased—with the number of swine entering the state increasing on average by about 1 million per year from 2002 to 2011—the number of field veterinarians responsible for coordinating disease surveillance across 99 counties decreased from 11 in 2001 to 7 in 2012. Such declines are symptomatic of a more general decline in the number of veterinarians, particularly livestock and poultry veterinarians. In 2009, for example, we reported that four of the five key agencies that employ veterinarians—USDA’s APHIS, Food Safety and Inspection Service, and Agricultural Research Service and the Army— identified existing or potential shortages in the federal veterinary workforce, which agencies have begun to address, including by participating in the Office of Personnel Management’s veterinary medical officer advisory council to address the shortage.

No Overall Strategy with Goals and Measures Guides APHIS’s New Approach to Animal Disease Surveillance

APHIS has a vision for its new approach but has not integrated that vision into an overall strategy with associated goals and performance measures aligned with the nation’s larger biosurveillance efforts. None of APHIS’s planning documents clearly define (1) the goals the agency wants to achieve in the long term with its new disease surveillance approach, (2) how the agency intends to measure results, or (3) how APHIS’s disease surveillance efforts support national biosurveillance efforts.

No Overall Disease Surveillance Strategy with Goals and Measures Ties APHIS’s Various Plans Together

APHIS has a number of planning documents that describe a new strategic vision and mission for the primary division responsible for the agency’s new disease surveillance approach. Nevertheless, the agency has not integrated that vision into an overall strategy with associated goals and measures supporting the nation’s larger biosurveillance efforts. The Government Performance and Results Act, as amended, requires federal agencies to develop performance plans that include measurable We have previously reported that these requirements can also goals.serve as leading practices for planning at lower levels within agencies, such as individual divisions, programs, or initiatives.and performance measures helps an organization balance competing priorities, particularly if resources are constrained, and helps an agency assess progress toward intended results. Long-term strategic goals unify an agency’s many efforts in a coordinated framework for achieving results. Goals should correspond to the purposes set forth in the agency’s mission statement, they should cover the major functions and operations of an agency, and they should be measurable. Developing goals and performance measures helps an organization address important dimensions of program performance, balances competing priorities— especially if resources are declining or constrained—and shows progress or contributions to intended results. Performance measures, which typically have numerical targets, are important management tools that help an agency identify the activities that work well and those that do not. Without such performance measures, agencies cannot determine whether the activities and programs they are carrying out are accomplishing the goals they intend to achieve.

A number of APHIS planning documents (see app. IV for a list of selected planning documents) describe a new strategic vision and mission for APHIS’s Veterinary Services organization—the primary division responsible for implementing the new disease surveillance approach. Veterinary Services’ planning documents acknowledge that in preventing and detecting diseases in livestock and poultry and protecting animal health, the agency plays an important role in safeguarding public and environmental health as well. The goals APHIS has identified in these planning documents focus primarily on processes or activities but do not specifically address outcomes the agency seeks to accomplish or have associated performance measures. For example, the principal planning document explaining the agency’s future vision and mission includes the following goals: transforming the culture of the organization, investing in These technical infrastructure, and supporting readiness and response.goals describe what actions the agency intends to undertake but not what outcomes these actions are intended to achieve or how the agency will measure intended results.

Agency officials said that in the past, when APHIS focused its activities primarily on selected reportable diseases, measuring success was relatively straightforward: a primary performance measure of program success was the extent to which specific diseases had been eradicated and prevented from entering the United States or—in the case of eradicated diseases—prevented from reemerging. For example, APHIS’s animal disease programs have largely eradicated brucellosis in cattle and brucellosis and pseudorabies in domestic commercial U.S. swine; in addition, reentry of foot-and-mouth disease has been prevented: the nation has been free of foot-and-mouth disease since 1929. Officials we interviewed expressed concern, however, that traditional outcome measures like these may no longer be valid when applied to newly emerging diseases. For example, new influenza viruses, which may affect human health, are already circulating in domestic livestock and mutate so effectively that eradication is not considered possible.

The principal planning document for Veterinary Services establishes a goal to enhance the health of the nation’s animals by “anticipating and responding to new or emerging threats” but also states that the agency must still develop an effective mechanism for evaluating such threats and determining an appropriate response. Other, more-detailed Veterinary Services planning documents primarily communicate the key steps and obstacles to implementing a new approach to disease surveillance. They define issues—such as the need to develop better relationships with stakeholders—and identify potential ways of addressing these issues, but they do not tie the issues to an outcome-based goal or offer performance measures for gauging progress. In sum, none of these planning documents provide APHIS with a clear road map or overall strategy, with associated performance measures, for managing its new approach to animal disease surveillance.

Without performance measures, APHIS cannot construct the necessary relevant indicators of performance that ultimately reveal if the activities or initiatives the agency is pursuing—such as the collection of influenza data from swine—are the right ones and being carried out effectively. Given that influenza researchers are unsure to what extent the data collected from swine are sufficient or representative of the viruses circulating domestically, measurable goals could better enable the agency to demonstrate progress or success with the data they have already collected or intend to collect. But without specific measures of the outcomes APHIS intends to accomplish in following the behavior of novel diseases, the agency cannot, among other things, assess the utility of the data it is collecting or determine if it needs data sources other than those it has already identified. Neither can APHIS weigh its activities against one another to give higher priority to funding activities with the greatest potential to benefit animal and human health. APHIS, state animal health authorities, and publicly funded veterinary diagnostic laboratories all face increasing constraints on resources, which has, according to agency officials, impeded efforts to modernize information technology systems; monitor herd health; and efficiently and effectively test samples for animal diseases.

APHIS officials said that they recognize a need for adequate goals and reliable performance measures focused on outcomes. Indeed, officials said they have plans to develop goals and performance measures for their new approach but that under increasing fiscal pressure—APHIS’s budget decreased about 14 percent from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2013—they have focused first on streamlining operations, improving efficiencies, and carrying out already-funded pilot disease surveillance programs. For example, APHIS has proposed restructuring how business units within Veterinary Services are organized across the services’ field offices and headquarters and to modernize information technology systems. According to veterinary officials, their proposed actions achieve cost efficiencies over time, as well as support a broader approach to monitoring the health of livestock and poultry. In addition, the deputy administrator of Veterinary Services said, several new disease surveillance initiatives—including the pilot program to collect animal health data remotely in the field on mobile electronic devices and another to collect and test samples submitted voluntarily by producers and samples taken from swine at slaughter—can help determine both the quality of, and ease of access to, new sources of disease surveillance data. Once these initiatives and pilots have been implemented and evaluated, he said, he believes APHIS will be better situated to develop the goals and performance measures needed to determine the success of their new and broader approach to animal disease surveillance. APHIS officials did not provide a time frame for developing goals and measures.

These efforts would certainly help inform APHIS’s development of meaningful goals and performance measures, but resource constraints— and the risk that the introduction of a new or reemerging disease may substantially harm animal and human health—suggest it would be prudent for APHIS to move forward quickly to develop performance measures focused on outcomes to guide their disease surveillance efforts. As the results of APHIS’s surveillance initiatives become clearer, the agency can adjust its approach accordingly.

APHIS’s Plans Do Not Define Their Relationship with the Nation’s Biosurveillance Efforts

None of APHIS’s various plans indicate how they individually or collectively support national homeland security efforts called for in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9, or additional biosurveillance efforts that together make up a national policy to defend the nation’s food and agricultural systems against terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. The goals cited in these APHIS planning documents do not mention homeland security or tie an APHIS goal to a national biosurveillance effort. On the one hand, APHIS, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security’s National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense, has developed an Emergency Response Support System (or “information dashboard”). This system aims to bring together multiple potential sources of disease information on livestock and poultry—from federal and state governments, producers, and current research—into a single coordinated and integrated system to complement the Department of Homeland Security’s broader effort to support a national biosurveillance system. The Emergency Response Support System was developed by the Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Center at Texas A&M University and funded with help from the department. According to Disease Center officials, this information dashboard is intended to provide APHIS and its stakeholders the ability to quickly call up and display relevant sources of animal disease information and to nationally map producers’ farms, disease outbreaks, and animal movement, among other patterns, onto a computer monitor. On the other hand, however, none of the planning documents we reviewed indicates how this information dashboard is to align with or support broader national-level biosurveillance efforts.

Similarly, the planning documents make no mention of coordinating with other homeland security efforts to enhance disease surveillance in livestock and poultry. For example, the Department of Homeland Security has provided funding to develop tools for disease surveillance, such as an assay that tests swine saliva for foreign animal diseases, which can test samples from more than one animal at a time and may be faster and easier than collecting tissue or other biological samples. Officials involved in developing such diagnostic tools, however, told us that responsibilities shared between APHIS and the department have sometimes complicated development and use of such tools. As we have previously reported, federal agencies can use their strategic and annual performance plans as tools to drive collaboration with other agencies and partners and establish complementary goals and strategies for achieving results. Thus, an absence of shared measurable goals between APHIS and the Department of Homeland Security may be compromising both agencies’ understanding of how their monitoring of animal health—coupled with disease surveillance, control, and eradication efforts—complement broader national biosurveillance goals. APHIS officials agreed that it is important for the agency’s planning documents to show how the agency’s efforts support national homeland security efforts to enhance the detection of biological threats.

Conclusions

APHIS has long carried out important work to protect the nation’s livestock and poultry against economically devastating infectious diseases and against the potential deadly effects of such diseases on people. Foot-and-mouth disease has not infected cattle or swine in the United States since 1929, and pseudorabies and brucellosis have been virtually eradicated in commercial swine and cattle. The near elimination of tuberculosis is considered one of the greatest animal and public health achievements in the United States. Moreover, given the changing disease landscape, APHIS has begun to craft a more comprehensive approach to monitoring animal health—one no longer restricted to eradicating only certain diseases. We commend the agency for its efforts (1) to develop a vision for its new approach and planning documents for undertaking it and (2) to collect better data from new and different sources and better synthesize and analyze information to identify potentially harmful new pathogens earlier. Nevertheless, APHIS has not to date developed goals or performance measures for its new approach; agency officials said they have plans to do so, but they did not provide a time frame. Even with its efforts to date, however, without integrating the vision in its planning documents into an overall strategy with associated goals and measures that are aligned with broader national homeland security efforts to detect biological threats, APHIS may not be ideally positioned to support national efforts to address the next threat to animal and human health.

Recommendation for Executive Action

As APHIS develops goals and measures for its new approach to disease surveillance in livestock and poultry, we recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the APHIS Administrator to integrate the agency’s vision into an overall strategy, with associated goals and measures, that guides how APHIS’s new approach will support national homeland security efforts to enhance the detection of biological threats.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report for review and comment to the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security. USDA and the Department of Homeland Security provided written comments, which are reproduced in appendixes VI and VII, respectively; these agencies also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. The Department of Health and Human Services had no comments.

In its written comments, USDA concurred with our recommendation that APHIS integrate the agency’s vision into an overall strategy that guides how APHIS’s new approach will support national homeland security efforts. USDA stated that APHIS will include better performance metrics in its planning efforts and develop more explicit linkages between its swine surveillance activities and other national homeland security efforts.

In its letter, the Department of Homeland Security thanked us for the opportunity to review the draft report and noted that the department supports developments at APHIS to advance disease surveillance in animal and plant populations. The Department of Homeland Security also stated that it remains committed to working with its many partners, including those in the federal government, to better mitigate and defend against dynamic threats and maximize the ability to respond to and recover from attacks and disasters of all kinds.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretaries of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security; appropriate congressional committees; and other interested parties. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff members have any questions regarding this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or garciadiazd@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix VIII.

Appendix I: Key Stakeholders in Disease Surveillance in Livestock and Poultry

Table 1 lists the primary federal, state, and private-sector organizations or groups that have a key role or stake in the surveillance of diseases in livestock and poultry. The list includes animal health organizations, human health organizations concerned with zoonotic diseases that might be transmitted between livestock and poultry and humans, and those organizations interested in monitoring diseases in livestock and poultry as part of broader national biosurveillance efforts.

Appendix II: Status of Reportable Swine Diseases in the United States, 2011

Table 2 shows the status in the United States of swine diseases that are to be reported to the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) when they are confirmed to be present in swine.

Appendix III: Creation of a Novel Human Influenza Virus in 2011

When influenza viruses reproduce, they can exchange gene segments in a process known as reassortment—a genetic shuffling—that can create new influenza viruses containing gene segments that may have originated in different host animals. In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 12 cases of a novel influenza virus called an H3N2 variant virus, and in 2012, 309 cases of this virus were reported. The genetic makeup of this virus showed that it was derived from (1) a virus that had been circulating in swine and (2) the human H1N1 virus that caused the 2009 influenza pandemic. Thanks to still earlier genetic shuffling, the gene segments in this novel 2011 influenza virus came from humans, birds, and swine, as illustrated in figure 4.

Appendix IV: List of Selected APHIS Plans Related to Disease Surveillance in Livestock and Poultry

Appendix V: Printable Interactive Graphics

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Agriculture

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security

Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Daniel Garcia-Diaz, (202) 512-3841 or garciadiazd@gao.gov.

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Mary Denigan-Macauley (Assistant Director), Kevin Bray, Ellen W. Chu, Kirsten Lauber, Dan Royer, Kiki Theodoropoulos, Ginny Vanderlinde, and Karen Villafana made key contributions to this report.