In the veterinary epidemiology, the advantage of mapping the locations of farms and
other facilities with animals is obvious. In an outbreak of a disease it could make the
management of the situation easier, and it could also provide a tool to evaluate different
strategies to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. This paper aims to describe and
give an overview of the possibilities and potential uses of a Geographical Information
System (GIS) in the field of surveillance and monitoring of animal diseases. The following
areas in which GIS and special GIS-functions could be incorporated are presented:
recording and reporting information, epidemic emergency, cluster analysis,
modelling disease spread, and planning control strategies. Different sources of data; geographical
data, farm locations and disease information, used in the development of the
GIS at the National Veterinary Institute in Norway are thoroughly described in the paper.
Further, it presents a few examples where the GIS has been applied to studies of epidemiology
and surveillance of animal diseases in Norway, which shows the significant
value of GIS in these areas. At the same time, the incorporation of GIS in this field
shows the scarcity of the data available, which should encourage improvement in the
data recording and the quality of the registries.
Geographical Information Systems, Surveillance, Epidemiology