The large amount of data available from the Nergal-Abattoir system, nearly 2 million cattle, might be the basis of a syndromic surveillance system in France, based on meat inspection data.
These data, related to diseases and other disorders, not available elsewhere, can be registered in real time during the slaughtering process as demonstrated by pilot systems such as the Nergal-Abattoir system in France [ 2].
The 264 different reasons for condemnation of the Nergal-Abattoir system were merged into 57 reasons for condemnation levels according to their biological similarities or in order to compare data among slaughterhouses when the levels of detail of the reasons for condemnation were different (e.g. "abscess", "multiple abscess", "local abscess" were merged into "abscess").
Age of sampled animals was noted according to the abattoir classification system, i.e. older calves (mainly 5 8 months), young stock (mainly 12 24 months) or adult cattle (mainly 36 months or more).
Knowledge of associations between lesions could also be employed to inform official abattoir inspection systems, in which the presence of one pathol ogy could trigger an inspection for others.
Multiple factor analysis (MFA) in combination with clustering methods was thus performed on meat inspection data available from the Nergal-Abattoir French system to identify which lesions or groups of lesions could be used as indicators for specific or non-specific syndromic surveillance.
Three sentinel site selection approaches for a sentinel syndromic surveillance system using abattoir condemnation data were proposed and compared to the full set of provincially inspected abattoirs in Ontario from 2001 2007.
Studies of dromedaries within camel herds and through the animal marketing system supplying abattoirs are needed to define the epidemiology of the infection.
The new, larger Salt's Cure is very much a restaurant, with patio seating, cocktails, Miles Davis cuts on the sound system, but the abattoir vibe is still pretty much there: You dab hot, salty pretzel rolls with whipped lardo, pour a little Beaujolais into your glass and wonder whether you would rather splash $110 on the giant rib-eye featured on the chalkboard or settle — settle!
Pig health schemes were proposed to provide an integrated system to capture abattoir information based on more detailed post-mortem inspection [ 14] which is considered to improve classification characteristics, particularly sensitivity [ 12].
Sentinel abattoirs show promise for integration into a food animal syndromic surveillance system using Ontario provincial abattoir condemnation data.
