The World Organisation for Animal Health and the World Health Organization: intergovernmental disease information and reporting systems and their role in early warning.

Abstract

Only two international organisations have a global legal framework that allows them to request, collect, and release global animal or human health information: the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), which is responsible for transparently assessing the global animal health situation, and the World Health Organization (WHO), which is responsible for transparently assessing the global human health situation. Legal instruments bind OIE Member Countries and WHO States Parties (OIE's Standards and WHO's International Health Regulations [IHR]) to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to their respective organisations. OIE Member Countries must report exceptional epidemiological events involving any OIE-listed diseases, including zoonoses. Moreover, they must notify the OIE of any emerging animal diseases. The IHR require WHO Member States to provide notification of events that may constitute a public health emergency of international concern. These include, but are not restricted to, outbreaks of communicable diseases of international concern. In both organisations, in addition to reporting outbreaks and exceptional events, Members also monitor diseases on an ongoing basis and provide regular reports. To complement these passive surveillance mechanisms, the OIE, WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations track signals from informal sources of outbreaks of animal and zoonotic infectious diseases, thereby increasing the sensitivity of worldwide disease reporting. The formal information collected is disseminated to Members and the general public through various communication channels, so that countries can apply science-based measures to prevent further disease spread. Both the OIE and WHO reporting systems are supported by a range of coordinating activities to ensure the proper flow of information between national and international levels.