Designing serological surveillance programmes to document freedom from disease with special reference to exotic viral...

Surveillance programmes based on laboratory screening tests are increasingly used to document freedom from disease in order to facilitate trade. The following aspects must be considered when designing such programmes: diseases to be selected; epidemiology of the diseases; unit of analysis (animal or herd); target age group (or target farm type); test characteristics and sample size. Issues related to these aspects are discussed and illustrated using the example of serological surveillance for exotic viral diseases in the pig population of Denmark. Sampling designs based on individual animal samples are compared with herd-based sampling (two-stage sampling). While the latter is likely to require a larger sample size, the increased level of information and the reliability of the results obtained are considered to be worth the expense. Issues related to the development of international standards for declaring freedom from disease are discussed. The authors conclude that international standards are desirable, providing that these standards represent scientifically valid principles.