A framework for evaluating animals as sentinels for infectious disease surveillance

Area of Science:

• * Infectious disease dynamics and epidemiology.
• * Veterinary public health and wildlife ecology.

Background:

• * Infectious disease dynamics exhibit significant variability due to heterogeneous host ranges, pathogen responses, and host interactions.
• * Current surveillance strategies may not fully leverage this natural variation.

Purpose of the Study:

• * To propose animal sentinels as a tool to exploit host variation for enhanced pathogen surveillance.
• * To introduce a conceptual framework for evaluating the suitability of different animal populations as sentinels.

Main Methods:

• * Conceptual analysis of host-pathogen dynamics and surveillance potential.
• * Development of a framework for assessing sentinel host characteristics and information value.

Main Results:

• * Animal sentinels can capitalize on natural biological variation for broad-spectrum pathogen detection.
• * The effectiveness of animal sentinels is context-dependent, varying with host population characteristics.
• * A framework is presented to systematically evaluate potential sentinel hosts across diverse settings.

Conclusions:

• * Animal sentinels offer a promising, yet potentially underutilized, approach to infectious disease surveillance.
• * Improved interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial for optimizing the use of animal sentinels.
• * Systematic evaluation of host populations is necessary to maximize the value of animal sentinel surveillance.