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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Requesters: 

May 2013: 

Homeland Security: 

An Overall Strategy Is Needed to Strengthen Disease Surveillance in 
Livestock and Poultry: 

GAO-13-424: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-13-424, a report to congressional requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

International animal health authorities have stated that disease 
surveillance in livestock and poultry has as its main purpose the 
early detection of diseases and disease outbreaks. APHIS has worked 
closely with states and industry over the past decades to eradicate 
diseases by, for example, providing states with funding and guidance. 
But the disease landscape has changed, with rapid global movement of 
humans and animals, creating new threats. GAO was asked to review 
federal animal disease surveillance efforts. This report examines (1) 
USDA’s new approach to disease surveillance in light of a changing 
disease landscape and challenges, if any, the agency faces with this 
approach and (2) the extent to which this approach is guided by a 
strategy with measurable goals and supports broader national 
biosurveillance efforts. GAO reviewed relevant presidential 
directives, laws, regulations, guidance, policies, documents, and 
strategic plans related to disease surveillance in animals; visited 
swine facilities; and interviewed federal, state, and industry 
veterinarians and other officials. 

What GAO Found: 

Under a new approach, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has begun 
broadening its previous disease-by-disease approach to disease 
surveillance to one in which the agency monitors the overall health of 
livestock and poultry and uses additional sources and types of data to 
better detect and control new or reemerging diseases. APHIS’s first 
effort under its new approach is to monitor the health of the nation’s 
swine herds and identify new sources and types of data on diseases in 
swine, among other things. In planning documents, APHIS officials have 
proposed collecting data from farms where swine are raised, markets 
where they are sold, slaughter facilities, and veterinary diagnostic 
laboratories, among other sites. For example, APHIS has been 
monitoring for the presence of pseudorabies—-a viral disease of swine 
that may cause respiratory illness and death-—at slaughter facilities, 
but under the new approach, it has proposed monitoring these 
facilities for a range of other diseases as well. Key challenges to 
carrying out this new approach are how best to obtain data from 
producers, who are concerned that health information about their herds 
and flocks be kept confidential, and how to obtain health data in 
sufficient quantity from some animals like feral swine. Resource 
constraints also present a challenge, according to agency and state 
officials, given the recent decrease in APHIS’s budget of about 14 
percent for fiscal years 2008 through 2013. 

APHIS has a vision for its new approach but has not integrated that 
vision into an overall strategy with associated goals and performance 
measures that are aligned with the nation’s larger biosurveillance 
efforts. The Government Performance and Results Act, as amended, 
requires federal agencies to develop performance plans that include 
goals and performance measures. GAO has previously reported that these 
requirements can also serve as leading practices for planning at lower 
levels within agencies, such as individual divisions or programs. 
Developing goals and measures helps an organization balance competing 
priorities, particularly if resources are constrained, and helps an 
agency assess progress toward intended results. APHIS has developed a 
number of planning documents related to the agency’s capabilities in 
disease surveillance in livestock and poultry, which acknowledge that 
the agency plays an important role in safeguarding public and 
environmental health. Goals APHIS has identified in these documents, 
however, focus primarily on processes or activities and do not 
specifically address outcomes the agency seeks to accomplish or have 
associated performance measures. Moreover, none of the planning 
documents indicate how they individually or collectively support 
national homeland security efforts called for in Homeland Security 
Presidential Directive 9, which assigns several federal agencies, 
including USDA, responsibility for establishing a comprehensive and 
coordinated surveillance system to support early detection of 
biological threats, including infectious diseases. Agency officials 
said they plan to develop goals and measures for the new approach. 
Without integrating its vision into an overall strategy with goals and 
measures aligned with broader national homeland security efforts to 
detect biological threats, APHIS may not be ideally positioned to 
support national efforts to address the next threat to animal and 
human health. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that as APHIS develops goals and measures for its new 
approach, it integrate the agency’s vision into an overall strategy 
guiding how this approach supports national homeland security efforts 
to enhance the detection of biological threats. In their comments, 
USDA concurred with GAO’s recommendation, and the Department of 
Homeland Security described its commitment to disease surveillance 
efforts. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-424]. For more 
information, contact Daniel Garcia-Diaz, (202) 512-3841 or 
garciadiazd@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

USDA's APHIS Is Broadening Its Approach to Disease Surveillance in 
Livestock and Poultry and Faces Challenges in Doing So: 

No Overall Strategy with Goals and Measures Guides APHIS's New 
Approach to Animal Disease Surveillance: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendation for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Key Stakeholders in Disease Surveillance in Livestock and 
Poultry: 

Appendix II: Status of Reportable Swine Diseases in the United States, 
2011: 

Appendix III: Creation of a Novel Human Influenza Virus in 2011: 

Appendix IV: List of Selected APHIS Plans Related to Disease 
Surveillance in Livestock and Poultry: 

Appendix V: Printable Interactive Graphics: 

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Agriculture: 

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Key Stakeholders in Disease Surveillance in Livestock and 
Poultry: 

Table 2: Status of Reportable Swine Diseases in the United States, 
2011: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: How USDA Collects Information for Disease Surveillance from 
Livestock and Poultry Producers: 

Figure 2: Examples of Sources of Data on Swine Health: 

Figure 3: Expansion of Nationwide Feral Swine Population, 1982, 2004, 
and 2012: 

Figure 4: Creation of a Novel Human Influenza Virus in 2011: 

Abbreviations: 

APHIS: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service: 

CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 

HHS: Department of Health and Human Services: 

OIE: World Organisation for Animal Health: 

USDA: U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

May 21, 2013: 

The Honorable Susan W. Brooks: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications: 
Committee on Homeland Security: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Gus M. Bilirakis: 
House of Representatives: 

The agricultural sector is a critical component of the nation's 
infrastructure. Threats to the sector may not only sicken animals used 
for food but also seriously harm the economy and human health. A 2001 
outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom, for example, 
resulted in the slaughter of more than 4 million animals to contain 
the disease, losses of over $5 billion to the food and agriculture 
sectors, and comparable losses to the tourism industry.[Footnote 1] In 
addition, physical boundaries have narrowed between expanding human 
populations, wildlife, and commercial agriculture, and technological 
advances have facilitated the rapid movement of humans, animals, and 
food products around the world. As these boundaries have narrowed and 
these technological advances have taken place, the landscape for 
animal and human disease and its associated surveillance--that is, the 
process of collecting, analyzing, and exchanging information related 
to cases of infectious diseases--has also changed. In fact, the 
National Academies report that nearly two-thirds of infectious 
diseases affecting humans result from pathogens transmitted between 
animals and people, causing diseases known as zoonoses. Under this 
changing disease landscape, not only can the emergence of a single, 
highly contagious animal disease bring sales of livestock and poultry 
to a standstill, but a pathogen that is transmissible to humans who 
lack immunity can also have wide impact on public health. The 2009 
novel H1N1 influenza virus with origins in swine is one example of a 
recent mutation of an influenza virus that affected both human health 
and the pork industry, a vital part of U.S. agriculture. Not only did 
the virus cause a worldwide influenza epidemic, or pandemic,[Footnote 
2] but it also led to substantial losses in pork sales when consumers 
mistakenly believed they could become infected by eating pork. 

To establish a national policy to defend against, among other threats, 
potentially catastrophic effects of disease outbreaks in animals, the 
President issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9 in 2004. 
This directive assigns to several federal agencies--including the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and 
Human Services--responsibility for establishing a comprehensive and 
coordinated surveillance system to support early detection of 
infectious diseases, among other things. Also under presidential 
directive 9, the Department of Homeland Security shall coordinate with 
appropriate federal agencies to create a new biological threat 
awareness capacity to enhance detection and characterization of an 
attack.[Footnote 3] USDA exercises its authority under the Animal 
Health Protection Act to detect, control, and eradicate diseases in 
livestock and poultry through its Animal and Plant Health Inspection 
Service (APHIS).[Footnote 4] In addition, the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention (CDC), within the Department of Health and 
Human Services, has entered into a collaborative agreement to work 
with USDA on disease surveillance for influenza, a zoonosis that 
infects humans and some livestock and poultry. 

Threats from biological agents, including zoonotic pathogens, 
highlight the need for an effective agricultural defense system, 
including disease surveillance in livestock and poultry. Animal 
disease surveillance consists of collecting, analyzing, and 
interpreting animal health data to detect diseases early, enable rapid 
reporting and response during disease outbreaks, and control the 
spread of disease.[Footnote 5] As we reported in 2011, however, 
federal efforts in this regard are still in development: no 
centralized coordination effort is in place to oversee the federal 
agencies' overall implementation of Homeland Security Presidential 
Directive 9.[Footnote 6] We also reported that the agency within the 
Department of Homeland Security designated to integrate national 
surveillance efforts does not receive from its federal partner 
agencies the kind of expertise it has identified as most critical for 
supporting its early-detection mission--particularly, data generated 
at the earliest stages of an event or outbreak.[Footnote 7] 

In this context, you asked us to review the federal government's 
efforts to conduct surveillance activities for animal diseases in 
livestock and wildlife. This report examines (1) USDA's new approach 
to disease surveillance in livestock and poultry in light of a 
changing disease landscape and challenges, if any, the agency faces 
with this approach and (2) the extent to which this approach is guided 
by a strategy with measurable goals and supports broader national 
biosurveillance efforts. 

To address both these objectives, we reviewed presidential directives 
regarding biosurveillance, biodefense, and homeland security, 
specifically, Homeland Security Presidential Directives 7, 9, 10, and 
21.[Footnote 8] We also reviewed USDA's authorizing legislation, 
relevant regulations, guidance, policy documents, and strategic and 
other plans for disease surveillance in livestock and poultry, 
including the Animal Health Protection Act and the federal 
traceability rule for livestock moving between states. We interviewed 
officials from USDA and from the Departments of Health and Human 
Services, and Homeland Security who collectively have responsibilities 
for disease surveillance in livestock and poultry, surveillance for 
influenza and other zoonotic diseases, research, coordination of 
biosurveillance activities, and management of information technology 
used to track data on livestock and poultry diseases. We also reviewed 
USDA's disease surveillance planning documents, leading practices in 
strategic planning that we identified in prior work, and key strategic 
planning documents regarding national biosurveillance from the 
Departments of Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security. To 
review the issue in depth, we focused on disease surveillance in 
swine. We selected swine because they represent a significant portion 
of the nation's livestock and poultry industry and are susceptible to 
many diseases of national concern, including some that can sicken 
humans. In addition, USDA has initiated a comprehensive species 
surveillance program for swine, its first for livestock and poultry. 

To collect information on specific disease surveillance practices, we 
selected four states for review: Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, and 
Texas. We selected these states to ensure that our review (1) 
represented geographic variation in pork-producing regions; (2) 
included states with large swine populations, as well as states with 
comparatively smaller populations; and (3) represented a number of 
potential data sources for disease surveillance in livestock and 
poultry, such as livestock markets and veterinary diagnostic 
laboratories. Moreover, because feral swine present a potential source 
of infection to commercial food animal herds, we chose only states 
where feral swine are present.[Footnote 9] Together, these four states 
represent 46 percent of the nation's commercial swine population. 
Because we did not select a generalizable sample of states, the 
results from these four states cannot be generalized to all states, 
but they can provide examples of disease surveillance practices in the 
four states. Within our four selected states, we obtained and reviewed 
state guidance on disease surveillance in livestock and poultry; forms 
the states use to obtain livestock and poultry health information for 
disease surveillance purposes; and strategic plans, where available. 
We also interviewed federal and state animal, public health, and 
veterinary laboratory authorities and pork producers or their 
representatives within our selected states; we also visited a hobby 
farm, a feral swine holding facility, and two livestock markets in 
most of these states. In addition, we interviewed representatives of 
the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, the 
American Association of Swine Veterinarians, the National Pork Board, 
and the National Pork Producers Council. We reviewed funding from 
fiscal year 2007 through fiscal year 2013 for USDA programs supporting 
disease surveillance in livestock and poultry, including funding to 
modernize information technology systems. We also reviewed annual 
reports for fiscal years 2010 through 2011 summarizing program data 
collected through USDA's Influenza in Swine Surveillance Program. 
These data include the number of biological submissions tested and the 
biological data analyzed. To assess the reliability of the financial 
data we analyzed, we reviewed USDA's agency financial reports for 
fiscal years 2009 to 2012 and relevant evaluations of USDA financial 
information by the USDA Office of Inspector General. We also 
interviewed budget officials to further confirm the data's accuracy. 
We identified no material problems with the accuracy of financial data 
reported by USDA. To assess the reliability of the influenza program 
data, we interviewed USDA officials familiar with how the data were 
collected, entered into the database, and checked for accuracy. We 
determined that the financial and program data were sufficiently 
reliable for our purposes. 

We conducted this performance audit from November 2011 to May 2013 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

According to international animal health authorities, disease 
surveillance in livestock and poultry has as its main purpose the 
early detection of diseases and disease outbreaks. It also plays an 
important role during outbreaks, such as monitoring how fast a disease 
is spreading through animal populations and in what direction. Disease 
surveillance is also critical in determining how effective efforts 
have been in controlling and eradicating disease from a particular 
area or animal population and in recognizing when that disease no 
longer poses an immediate threat to animal or human health. Further, 
surveillance supports international trade, allowing officials to 
certify that animals are healthy and safe to move across borders. 
Disease surveillance in livestock and poultry is particularly 
important because billions of cattle, swine, poultry, and other 
animals used for food are annually moved from place to place over long 
distances throughout the food supply chain--from wherever producers 
are located and then to feedlots and local, regional, and even 
overseas markets and slaughterhouses. Thus, to prevent the spread of 
contagious diseases and protect the welfare of healthy herds, animal 
health authorities often restrict the movement of animals. Such 
restrictions can lead, paradoxically, to the destruction of large 
numbers of uninfected animals and substantial economic losses. 

Federal, state, tribal, and industry entities share responsibility for 
carrying out disease surveillance in livestock and poultry (see 
appendix I).[Footnote 10] Under the national animal health reporting 
system, APHIS typically works with states to monitor, control, and 
eradicate certain animal diseases. According to APHIS documents and 
state veterinary officials, such activities include, for example, 
issuing guidance on how to identify and report particular diseases of 
national concern, developing vaccination programs, and providing 
additional staff to work alongside state investigators tracking 
outbreaks of infectious diseases. To manage these reportable diseases, 
APHIS has worked closely with the states and industry over the past 
decades to eradicate them by, for example, providing states funding 
and guidance. According to APHIS documents, the agency has made 
significant gains in eradicating reportable diseases such as 
tuberculosis and brucellosis, which have historically plagued American 
livestock. State animal health officials work closely with industry 
and with state-operated veterinary diagnostic laboratories to monitor 
and protect the health of livestock and poultry within state 
boundaries, including regulating the entry of livestock and poultry 
into their states. Veterinarians accredited under APHIS's National 
Veterinary Accreditation Program are directed to report to APHIS the 
suspected presence of selected domestic and foreign animal diseases 
that can cause significant economic, trade, or public health 
consequences (see appendix II for a list of such diseases in swine). 
[Footnote 11] Some states also require veterinarians to directly 
report to state animal health authorities the incidence of diseases 
that are not reportable nationally. 

Industry is an important source of health data on livestock and 
poultry, privately maintaining that information and reporting it to 
state and federal officials when a reportable disease is suspected. 
Veterinarians working for livestock and poultry producers collect 
tissue and blood samples from animals and send them to a veterinary 
laboratory for diagnosis; these veterinarians are the first line of 
defense in disease surveillance, whether for detecting diseases or 
monitoring a disease during an outbreak. The laboratory returns test 
results confidentially to the veterinarian or person submitting the 
sample, unless the test results indicate the presence of a federal or 
state reportable disease, in which case those test results are 
reported to appropriate federal or state authorities. When a 
veterinarian suspects the presence of a foreign animal disease in a 
herd, the veterinarian contacts state and federal animal health 
authorities to take a sample and send it to APHIS's National 
Veterinary Services Laboratories to confirm the diagnosis (see fig. 
1). If state and federal animal health officials approve, a National 
Animal Health Laboratory Network laboratory may conduct initial 
screening for certain foreign animal diseases. But a sample is also 
sent to APHIS's National Veterinary Services Laboratories to confirm 
the diagnosis. 

Figure 1: How USDA Collects Information for Disease Surveillance from 
Livestock and Poultry Producers: 

[Refer to PDF for image: process illustration] 

Producer's herd or flock: 
Reportable domestic disease to Veterinarian; 
Reportable foreign animal disease to Veterinarian; 
Nonreportable disease information from Veterinarian. 

Veterinarian: 
Reportable domestic disease to State laboratory[A]: Veterinarian 
identifies symptoms of a potential reportable domestic disease and 
sends samples to state laboratory; 
From State laboratory[A] to Veterinarian: For every disease, 
laboratory sends results back to veterinarian or producer. 
If symptoms of a potential reportable disease are identified, 
veterinarian contacts state animal health authority, APHIS, or both[B]. 

State laboratory[A]: 
For federal and state reportable diseases, laboratory sends results to 
state animal health authority; 
For federal reportable diseases, laboratory sends results to Animal 
and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). 

State animal health authority: sends reportable foreign animal disease 
results to APHIS. 

APHIS: sends sample to National Veterinary Services Laboratories to 
make definitive diagnosis of a potential reportable foreign animal 
disease[C]. 

Source: GAO. 

Note: Besides federally reportable diseases, states may monitor other 
diseases of interest that are reportable at the state level. 

[A] Some state laboratories may be members of USDA's National Animal 
Health Laboratory Network and, as such, conduct routine diagnostic 
tests for domestic diseases and targeted surveillance tests for 
foreign animal diseases. 

[B] The state animal health authority and APHIS assign a foreign 
animal disease diagnostician to collect and send a sample to the 
National Veterinary Services Laboratories. 

[C] According to APHIS officials, a second sample may be sent to a 
National Animal Health Laboratory Network laboratory for preliminary 
diagnosis at the same time as a sample is sent to the National 
Veterinary Services Laboratories, which must confirm all diagnoses of 
these diseases. 

[End of figure] 

[Side bar: 

Influenza, People, and Swine: 

Throughout history, influenza pandemics have swept through human 
populations, thanks largely to the virus’s ability to mutate into new 
variants that people are not immune to. The first recorded influenza 
pandemic hit in 1580. The pandemic of 1918, known as Spanish flu, was 
the most devastating, infecting about one-third of the world’s 
population and killing 50 million people worldwide. Three subsequent 
pandemics–-in 1957, 1968, and 2009-–infected millions and killed 
hundreds of thousands, although none was as severe as the great 
pandemic of 1918. 

Decades later, scientists discovered that the great pandemic may have 
been caused by a virus with swine origins. They deduced that humans 
contracted the virus and transmitted it to pigs, where it mutated. 
Indeed, influenza has endured for centuries because it changes 
constantly when reproducing. If it did not, humans would eventually 
build immunity, and the virus would die out. 

Because swine are susceptible to avian, human, and swine viruses, 
swine can be a vessel for the genetic shuffling that creates new viral 
variants. Genetic testing helps identify variants that may threaten 
humans. Thus, although swine are a source of new, potentially 
threatening influenza variants, they also serve as a disease 
surveillance tool, an early-warning system against the next great 
pandemic. 

[Photograph] 

Source: USDA. 

In above photo, swine provide saliva samples by chewing on cotton 
ropes. 

[End of side bar] 

Contagious diseases with the potential to harm the economy and human 
health may spread among livestock and poultry, and in some cases be 
transmitted to humans, through various methods. For example, classical 
swine fever[Footnote 12] may be transmitted from an infected swine to 
another directly through nose-to-nose and sexual contact or indirectly 
through a person or object, such as a farmhand's clothing. Swine may 
also contract the disease through exposure to or consumption of 
contaminated pork products, which typically occurs when swine are fed 
uncooked garbage or meat products from a source outside the United 
States. The classical swine fever virus is known to survive in pork 
meat for up to 180 days. Although this disease affects only swine, 
other diseases in swine have the capacity to affect humans. For 
example, swine can become infected not only with swine influenza 
viruses but with human and avian viruses as well. According to recent 
influenza research, evidence exists that influenza viruses can be 
transmitted through the air between swine and humans and that either 
host can be contagious before showing symptoms of illness. When a 
swine is infected with more than one influenza virus at the same time, 
the viruses can exchange genetic material, thereby creating a new 
influenza virus, which may vary in its virulence and transmissibility 
between and within species (see appendix III). 

USDA's APHIS Is Broadening Its Approach to Disease Surveillance in 
Livestock and Poultry and Faces Challenges in Doing So: 

To better adapt to the changing landscape of human and animal diseases 
(including the rapid global movement of humans, animals, and food 
products), APHIS has begun to shift its disease-specific surveillance 
approach to (1) monitor the overall health of livestock and poultry 
and (2) improve its ability to analyze health information about 
livestock and poultry. APHIS faces several challenges in carrying out 
this new approach, including obtaining new data from current and 
additional sources and determining how best to deploy declining 
resources, given increasing fiscal constraints. 

APHIS's New Approach Monitors Overall Health of Livestock and Poultry 
and Seeks to Improve Collection and Analysis of Information: 

As funding for disease eradication programs changes, and the global 
landscape of animal and human diseases produces new threats, APHIS has 
since fiscal year 2012 begun broadening its previous disease-by-
disease approach to one in which the agency monitors the overall 
health of certain livestock and poultry species. APHIS's intention is 
to examine the nation's livestock herds and poultry flocks in detail, 
using diverse sources of data, to better detect, monitor, and control 
diseases that may be new or reemerging, including domestic diseases of 
economic importance. Before its new approach, APHIS directed its 
programs for disease surveillance in livestock and poultry toward 
preventing the introduction of certain foreign animal diseases and to 
monitoring, detecting, and eradicating other reportable diseases 
already present in domestic herds. Information about nonreportable 
diseases, including diseases that were new or reemerging, was not 
always captured by the agency's disease surveillance efforts. 

According to APHIS documentation, beginning in fiscal year 2010, the 
agency proposed its first effort to broaden disease surveillance in 
livestock and poultry: monitoring the health of the nation's hog, or 
swine, herds. This program--called Comprehensive and Integrated Swine 
Surveillance--identifies new sources and types of data on diseases in 
swine, among other things. Since fiscal year 2012, the agency has been 
receiving funding on a species, or commodity, basis, rather than on a 
disease-specific basis; thus, the agency's swine health activities, 
including surveillance, were provided dedicated funding for the first 
time that year at $23 million. To begin addressing multiple and 
evolving information needs about swine health under the program, the 
agency plans to draw new data from sites where swine typically 
converge in large numbers or where information on swine health can be 
easily collected. In planning documents, APHIS officials said that 
they plan to collect data from farms where swine are raised, markets 
where they are sold, slaughter facilities, and veterinary diagnostic 
laboratories, among other sites (see fig. 2). They also plan to 
collect data from feral swine, which may harbor diseases transmissible 
to domestic herds. Many of these sites are already monitored to some 
extent, but APHIS officials said they intend to expand how the sites 
are used in the future under the program. For example, APHIS has been 
monitoring for the presence of pseudorabies at slaughter facilities, 
but it has proposed monitoring these facilities for a range of other 
diseases as well, including classical swine fever.[Footnote 13] 
According to agency officials, APHIS is also considering potential new 
information sources, such as data that states collect on diseases of 
regional concern, some of which fall outside the category of 
reportable diseases. APHIS has begun to take some of its planned 
actions under this program, but many of the planned actions require 
further coordination and concurrence from industry and states before 
they can be implemented. 

Figure 2: Examples of Sources of Data on Swine Health: 

[Refer to PDF for image: 3 photographs] 

Commercial swine farm; 
Feral swine; 
Livestock market; 

Sources: USDA and GASO. 

[End of figure] 

In addition to making better use of existing data sources and 
identifying new ones, APHIS and the Department of Homeland Security 
launched a 9-month pilot program designed to use volunteer 
veterinarians to assist in detecting diseases early, including new and 
emerging diseases. Scheduled to conclude in May 2013, according to 
Homeland Security officials, this pilot program involves a number of 
participating private veterinarians, working in a small area of West 
Texas and New Mexico, who are using electronic tablets to record and 
submit to APHIS data on syndromes they observe in livestock herds, 
that is, data on the collective signs and symptoms of sickness that 
animals exhibit. According to a statement of work for this program, 
such information has not been systematically collected and reported 
before, and this pilot offers the opportunity to gauge the usefulness 
of such information. 

Under this new approach, APHIS also plans to improve its ability to 
analyze information--collected from numerous sources for different 
purposes and in different formats--on the overall health of livestock 
and poultry, by standardizing how the information is reported and 
improving how the data are linked electronically. Because data 
standards vary greatly among APHIS's numerous information systems, and 
within individual systems, APHIS has limited ability to analyze and 
aggregate information to generate a complete national picture of 
livestock and poultry health. To address these limitations, APHIS in 
2009 developed a multiyear information technology plan to restructure 
and modernize how the agency collects and manages information for 
detecting and monitoring diseases in livestock and poultry, including 
new and emerging disease threats. The technology plan's ultimate goal 
is to develop a centralized information repository containing health 
information about livestock and poultry from the most relevant 
internal and external databases and employing standardized data entry 
protocols. 

The initial phase of this effort to improve efficiency and data 
analysis is already under way. APHIS in January 2013 replaced its 
outdated Generic Disease Database, which contained information on 
outbreaks of domestic diseases, with a new database management system, 
called Surveillance Collaboration Services, which establishes 
standardized data fields and codes. APHIS also plans to electronically 
link this new database system with, among others, its existing 
Emergency Management Response System, which contains information 
derived from investigations of suspected foreign animal diseases, and 
Laboratory Messaging Services, which receives and records diagnostic 
test results for selected diseases of national concern. Estimated at 
$5.4 million, the first phase of APHIS's technology modernization 
effort--the deployment of the Surveillance Collaboration Services 
system--is scheduled to be completed 1 year ahead of its original 2014 
target date, APHIS officials said. 

APHIS Faces Challenges Implementing Its New Approach: 

APHIS faces key challenges in carrying out this new approach to 
disease surveillance in livestock and poultry, in particular, 
gathering data from current and additional sources, such as from 
industry and from state animal health authorities, and determining how 
best to deploy declining resources. 

Data: 

Obtaining new data on livestock and poultry health from current and 
additional sources is likely to be a challenge for various reasons, 
including (1) industry concerns over the confidentiality of animal 
health data and (2) the sufficiency of collected data. 

Data Confidentiality: 

APHIS's ability to gather new data will likely be hindered by industry 
concerns that some health information on livestock and poultry should 
be kept confidential and not shared. For example, industry 
representatives and state animal health authorities we spoke with said 
they would not be willing to share information about the health of 
their herds beyond what is required by federal regulation because the 
information, including information on the incidence of influenza in 
swine, might be made public and affect sales. These officials cited as 
an example a 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak in humans, which was 
genetically linked to an influenza virus found in swine and led to 
millions of dollars in lost sales to the pork industry because people 
mistakenly believed they could become ill from eating pork. Moreover, 
state animal health officials from one state reported that their state 
laws prohibit them from releasing information they collect on the 
health of their state's livestock and poultry unless the information 
is required to be reported by federal law to control an immediate 
threat to overall animal or public health. 

Moreover, APHIS may have difficulty obtaining complete data 
identifying individual livestock and poultry and their locations. 
Generally, the states, not the federal government, maintain animal 
identification and location data, in part because of industry data 
confidentiality concerns, according to APHIS documents. APHIS 
officials told us that most states will share this information during 
animal disease outbreaks, but some do not routinely share the 
information for surveillance purposes. This reluctance to routinely 
share could affect the agency's ability to generate a national picture 
of diseased and at-risk animals and their locations--information 
essential to effectively monitor and control livestock and poultry 
diseases, including new and emerging diseases. In July 2007, we 
reported that, for a number of reasons, APHIS faced serious challenges 
implementing a comprehensive national animal identification system. 
[Footnote 14] In January 2013, APHIS published a rule establishing 
national standards for identifying animals and documenting their 
movement that, with some exceptions, made it mandatory for livestock 
and poultry under federal regulation that are moved across state lines 
to have official identification and documentation. The new rule 
addresses some limitations of the old system, giving states some 
discretion in administering the program, including managing 
information required and maintained on animals entering their borders. 

The flexibility given to states with regard to how they maintain 
animal identification information under the new rule also poses 
challenges for APHIS to obtain information effectively and in a 
standardized manner. For example, states may use APHIS's approved 
types of animal identification, including animal identification 
numbers, and approved official documentation, such as the interstate 
certificate of veterinary inspection, but they can also use 
alternative systems. An APHIS document on animal disease traceability 
says that although states can use a number of animal identification 
systems, they must follow certain standards, but states need not abide 
by APHIS's suggested standards for documentation. In addition, states 
may track data in APHIS's animal identification and movement 
information systems or may maintain their own databases instead, and 
these databases may not be compatible with APHIS's systems. According 
to APHIS officials, standards are being developed to ensure future 
compatibility. 

Data Sufficiency: 

APHIS will likely face the challenge of gathering sufficient data to 
monitor diseases, because agency officials and pork producers differ 
in their views on how much collected information is enough to 
successfully identify potential disease threats. For example, APHIS 
officials reported that commercial producers voluntarily and 
anonymously shared nearly 9,400 swine samples with APHIS's National 
Swine Influenza Virus Surveillance Program in 2012, a 72 percent 
increase over the 5,460 samples submitted in 2011. But agency 
officials and pork producers disagree somewhat about whether collected 
data are sufficient to allow the program to successfully identify 
potential disease threats. About 66 million swine are raised on 68,300 
U.S. farms. Agency animal and human health researchers have questioned 
whether enough swine samples and information are being submitted to 
APHIS's influenza surveillance program. Influenza researchers also 
explained to us that because the data are submitted anonymously and 
cannot be linked with a particular farm or herd, they cannot be sure 
that the samples commercial producers provide to APHIS are 
representative of the viruses currently circulating domestically. 
Several pork producers, in contrast, told us they believe that the 
data APHIS has collected have been sufficient. 

APHIS also faces the challenge of obtaining sufficient data to monitor 
serious diseases that could spread to domestic herds and people from 
the nation's sizable and widespread feral swine population. Federal 
and state animal health officials and pork producers told us that 
feral swine pose a significant risk because they carry diseases that 
have been eradicated in domestic herds, such as brucellosis and 
pseudorabies, which, if reintroduced, could hinder hog movement and 
trade. According to APHIS documents, feral swine are also susceptible 
to contracting and transmitting foreign animal diseases because they 
are highly mobile, at times crossing the border with Mexico and eating 
out of landfills, where they might encounter contaminated garbage. The 
introduction of a foreign animal disease like classical swine fever 
could close export markets. Feral swine are also carriers of zoonotic 
diseases, such as brucellosis and influenza, which can infect humans 
and other species. Feral swine are most likely to affect small 
backyard farms with little security, but they may also attempt to 
infiltrate larger, more secure operations. 

Unlike domestic herds, feral swine are not easily accessible to 
veterinarians and wildlife biologists responsible for managing 
populations and monitoring diseases, and, according to federal and 
state officials, even when feral swine are located, they can be very 
difficult to capture. In addition, the population is growing rapidly. 
According to APHIS data, feral swine were present in 36 states as of 
2010, their population distribution and range having increased from 28 
states in 2004 and 17 states in 1982 (see fig. 3). Officials from 
APHIS's Wildlife Services told us that they have been sampling 
approximately 3,000 feral swine per year and testing for various 
diseases, including influenza, pseudorabies, brucellosis, and 
classical swine fever. Nevertheless, given an estimated nationwide 
population of 5 million feral swine, officials said that they would 
need to test significantly more animals per year to accurately portray 
the extent of diseases in this population. 

Figure 3: Expansion of Nationwide Feral Swine Population, 1982, 2004, 
and 2012: 

[Refer to PDF for image: Interactive Graphic: illustrated U.S. map] 

Instructions: Move mouse over individual years in the legend below to 
reveal the related swine distribution. For a printable version of this 
figure, see appendix V. 

Note: According to APHIS officials, although most of the feral swine 
population within specific areas in the earlier years remained there 
in later years, control efforts had removed some feral swine from a 
few small areas by 2012. 

Sources: GAO analysis of USDA and state wildlife agency data; 
copyright © Corel Corp., all rights reserved (map). 

[End of figure] 

Resources: 

Declining resources--funding constraints and a shortage of 
veterinarians--also pose a challenge to broadening disease 
surveillance and improving analysis of livestock and poultry health 
data, according to APHIS officials. 

Funding Constraints: 

Federal and state animal health officials told us that decreased 
funding to USDA is a challenge to APHIS's disease surveillance efforts 
in livestock and poultry. According to agency documentation, the 
budget for APHIS recently decreased by about 14 percent for fiscal 
years 2008 through 2013. As a result, APHIS has seen funding for key 
components of its disease surveillance efforts decline as well, 
according to agency officials. For example, funding for federal-state 
cooperative agreements for monitoring animal health has decreased by 
44 percent, from $46 million in 2009 to $25 million in 2012.[Footnote 
15] We previously reported that state officials in agriculture and 
wildlife departments said that they depend largely or completely on 
federal funds to support biosurveillance efforts and that their 
capabilities to carry out disease surveillance and other 
biosurveillance activities would be limited without funding from 
federal grants and cooperative agreements.[Footnote 16] Funding for 
APHIS's National Wildlife Disease Surveillance and Emergency Response 
System, responsible for disease surveillance in feral swine, has been 
reduced by 71 percent, or $16 million, from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal 
year 2012. Additionally, funding for other disease surveillance 
programs has declined or remains uncertain. For example, the 
Department of Health and Human Services provided a one-time $25.75 
million in funding to APHIS in 2009 to extend the agency's prevention 
and surveillance capabilities for influenza virus in swine.[Footnote 
17] Because of a recent increase in the number of submitted samples 
from swine, however, APHIS officials project that funding will run out 
by fiscal year 2015 or earlier. As a result, APHIS officials said, the 
agency might not be able to continue to offer stakeholders viral 
diagnostic testing or genetic sequencing services using this funding. 
USDA officials told us they are uncertain whether future funding will 
exist for these activities. 

In addition, state officials participating in USDA's National Animal 
Health Laboratory Network have reported that insufficient and 
declining funding is reducing their ability to effectively and rapidly 
identify, report, and respond to an outbreak of a serious disease, 
such as foot-and-mouth disease. For example, officials from member 
laboratories have reported difficulties maintaining essential 
diagnostic personnel and expertise. The network receives funding from 
APHIS for operational support, including testing, equipment 
maintenance, training assays, and travel. APHIS and USDA's National 
Institute of Food and Agriculture also provide support for 
infrastructure, including personnel and maintaining and developing 
information technology. According to APHIS officials, funding from 
APHIS to pay for testing for certain diseases has decreased even 
though overall funding has increased somewhat since 2007. In addition, 
funding for laboratory infrastructure provided by the National 
Institute for Food and Agriculture has declined by 40 percent. 
Laboratory officials told us that this drop forced some laboratories 
to cut their staffing levels, reducing the number of highly trained 
personnel who can perform the biological tests needed to rapidly 
identify, report, and respond to diseases. Member laboratory officials 
also told us that working with an outdated National Animal Health 
Laboratory Network information system limited the efficiency with 
which data generated from laboratory testing can be transmitted to 
APHIS. 

Shortages of Veterinarians: 

According to federal and state officials, a decrease in the number of 
APHIS field veterinarians has also reduced the agency's ability to 
carry out critical disease surveillance activities effectively. At the 
time of our review, officials in each of the four states we visited 
reported a reduced number of field veterinarians as a primary 
challenge to effective collection of health data from livestock and 
poultry. Some officials explained that, in particular, too few 
veterinarians affected veterinarians' ability to stay in frequent 
contact with farms, such as small farms having little biosecurity and 
a high risk of their animals' contracting serious diseases. For 
example, officials in one state reported a vacant position for the 
state's primary APHIS field veterinarian. Another state official 
reported that even as livestock and poultry imports have increased--
with the number of swine entering the state increasing on average by 
about 1 million per year from 2002 to 2011--the number of field 
veterinarians responsible for coordinating disease surveillance across 
99 counties decreased from 11 in 2001 to 7 in 2012. Such declines are 
symptomatic of a more general decline in the number of veterinarians, 
particularly livestock and poultry veterinarians. In 2009, for 
example, we reported that four of the five key agencies that employ 
veterinarians--USDA's APHIS, Food Safety and Inspection Service, and 
Agricultural Research Service and the Army--identified existing or 
potential shortages in the federal veterinary workforce, which 
agencies have begun to address, including by participating in the 
Office of Personnel Management's veterinary medical officer advisory 
council to address the shortage.[Footnote 18] 

No Overall Strategy with Goals and Measures Guides APHIS's New 
Approach to Animal Disease Surveillance: 

APHIS has a vision for its new approach but has not integrated that 
vision into an overall strategy with associated goals and performance 
measures aligned with the nation's larger biosurveillance efforts. 
None of APHIS's planning documents clearly define (1) the goals the 
agency wants to achieve in the long term with its new disease 
surveillance approach, (2) how the agency intends to measure results, 
or (3) how APHIS's disease surveillance efforts support national 
biosurveillance efforts. 

No Overall Disease Surveillance Strategy with Goals and Measures Ties 
APHIS's Various Plans Together: 

APHIS has a number of planning documents that describe a new strategic 
vision and mission for the primary division responsible for the 
agency's new disease surveillance approach. Nevertheless, the agency 
has not integrated that vision into an overall strategy with 
associated goals and measures supporting the nation's larger 
biosurveillance efforts. The Government Performance and Results Act, 
as amended, requires federal agencies to develop performance plans 
that include measurable goals.[Footnote 19] We have previously 
reported that these requirements can also serve as leading practices 
for planning at lower levels within agencies, such as individual 
divisions, programs, or initiatives.[Footnote 20] Developing goals and 
performance measures helps an organization balance competing 
priorities, particularly if resources are constrained, and helps an 
agency assess progress toward intended results. Long-term strategic 
goals unify an agency's many efforts in a coordinated framework for 
achieving results. Goals should correspond to the purposes set forth 
in the agency's mission statement, they should cover the major 
functions and operations of an agency, and they should be measurable. 
Developing goals and performance measures helps an organization 
address important dimensions of program performance, balances 
competing priorities--especially if resources are declining or 
constrained--and shows progress or contributions to intended results. 
Performance measures, which typically have numerical targets, are 
important management tools that help an agency identify the activities 
that work well and those that do not. Without such performance 
measures, agencies cannot determine whether the activities and 
programs they are carrying out are accomplishing the goals they intend 
to achieve. 

A number of APHIS planning documents (see app. IV for a list of 
selected planning documents) describe a new strategic vision and 
mission for APHIS's Veterinary Services organization--the primary 
division responsible for implementing the new disease surveillance 
approach. Veterinary Services' planning documents acknowledge that in 
preventing and detecting diseases in livestock and poultry and 
protecting animal health, the agency plays an important role in 
safeguarding public and environmental health as well. The goals APHIS 
has identified in these planning documents focus primarily on 
processes or activities but do not specifically address outcomes the 
agency seeks to accomplish or have associated performance measures. 
For example, the principal planning document explaining the agency's 
future vision and mission includes the following goals: transforming 
the culture of the organization, investing in technical 
infrastructure, and supporting readiness and response.[Footnote 21] 
These goals describe what actions the agency intends to undertake but 
not what outcomes these actions are intended to achieve or how the 
agency will measure intended results. 

Agency officials said that in the past, when APHIS focused its 
activities primarily on selected reportable diseases, measuring 
success was relatively straightforward: a primary performance measure 
of program success was the extent to which specific diseases had been 
eradicated and prevented from entering the United States or--in the 
case of eradicated diseases--prevented from reemerging. For example, 
APHIS's animal disease programs have largely eradicated brucellosis in 
cattle and brucellosis and pseudorabies in domestic commercial U.S. 
swine; in addition, reentry of foot-and-mouth disease has been 
prevented: the nation has been free of foot-and-mouth disease since 
1929. Officials we interviewed expressed concern, however, that 
traditional outcome measures like these may no longer be valid when 
applied to newly emerging diseases. For example, new influenza 
viruses, which may affect human health, are already circulating in 
domestic livestock and mutate so effectively that eradication is not 
considered possible. 

The principal planning document for Veterinary Services establishes a 
goal to enhance the health of the nation's animals by "anticipating 
and responding to new or emerging threats" but also states that the 
agency must still develop an effective mechanism for evaluating such 
threats and determining an appropriate response.[Footnote 22] Other, 
more-detailed Veterinary Services planning documents primarily 
communicate the key steps and obstacles to implementing a new approach 
to disease surveillance.[Footnote 23] They define issues--such as the 
need to develop better relationships with stakeholders--and identify 
potential ways of addressing these issues, but they do not tie the 
issues to an outcome-based goal or offer performance measures for 
gauging progress. In sum, none of these planning documents provide 
APHIS with a clear road map or overall strategy, with associated 
performance measures, for managing its new approach to animal disease 
surveillance. 

Without performance measures, APHIS cannot construct the necessary 
relevant indicators of performance that ultimately reveal if the 
activities or initiatives the agency is pursuing--such as the 
collection of influenza data from swine--are the right ones and being 
carried out effectively. Given that influenza researchers are unsure 
to what extent the data collected from swine are sufficient or 
representative of the viruses circulating domestically, measurable 
goals could better enable the agency to demonstrate progress or 
success with the data they have already collected or intend to 
collect. But without specific measures of the outcomes APHIS intends 
to accomplish in following the behavior of novel diseases, the agency 
cannot, among other things, assess the utility of the data it is 
collecting or determine if it needs data sources other than those it 
has already identified. Neither can APHIS weigh its activities against 
one another to give higher priority to funding activities with the 
greatest potential to benefit animal and human health. APHIS, state 
animal health authorities, and publicly funded veterinary diagnostic 
laboratories all face increasing constraints on resources, which has, 
according to agency officials, impeded efforts to modernize 
information technology systems; monitor herd health; and efficiently 
and effectively test samples for animal diseases. 

APHIS officials said that they recognize a need for adequate goals and 
reliable performance measures focused on outcomes. Indeed, officials 
said they have plans to develop goals and performance measures for 
their new approach but that under increasing fiscal pressure--APHIS's 
budget decreased about 14 percent from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal 
year 2013--they have focused first on streamlining operations, 
improving efficiencies, and carrying out already-funded pilot disease 
surveillance programs. For example, APHIS has proposed restructuring 
how business units within Veterinary Services are organized across the 
services' field offices and headquarters and to modernize information 
technology systems. According to veterinary officials, their proposed 
actions achieve cost efficiencies over time, as well as support a 
broader approach to monitoring the health of livestock and poultry. In 
addition, the deputy administrator of Veterinary Services said, 
several new disease surveillance initiatives--including the pilot 
program to collect animal health data remotely in the field on mobile 
electronic devices and another to collect and test samples submitted 
voluntarily by producers and samples taken from swine at slaughter--
can help determine both the quality of, and ease of access to, new 
sources of disease surveillance data. Once these initiatives and 
pilots have been implemented and evaluated, he said, he believes APHIS 
will be better situated to develop the goals and performance measures 
needed to determine the success of their new and broader approach to 
animal disease surveillance. APHIS officials did not provide a time 
frame for developing goals and measures. 

These efforts would certainly help inform APHIS's development of 
meaningful goals and performance measures, but resource constraints--
and the risk that the introduction of a new or reemerging disease may 
substantially harm animal and human health--suggest it would be 
prudent for APHIS to move forward quickly to develop performance 
measures focused on outcomes to guide their disease surveillance 
efforts. As the results of APHIS's surveillance initiatives become 
clearer, the agency can adjust its approach accordingly. 

APHIS's Plans Do Not Define Their Relationship with the Nation's 
Biosurveillance Efforts: 

None of APHIS's various plans indicate how they individually or 
collectively support national homeland security efforts called for in 
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9, or additional 
biosurveillance efforts that together make up a national policy to 
defend the nation's food and agricultural systems against terrorist 
attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. The goals cited in 
these APHIS planning documents do not mention homeland security or tie 
an APHIS goal to a national biosurveillance effort. On the one hand, 
APHIS, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security's 
National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense, has 
developed an Emergency Response Support System (or "information 
dashboard"). This system aims to bring together multiple potential 
sources of disease information on livestock and poultry--from federal 
and state governments, producers, and current research--into a single 
coordinated and integrated system to complement the Department of 
Homeland Security's broader effort to support a national 
biosurveillance system. The Emergency Response Support System was 
developed by the Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Center at Texas 
A&M University and funded with help from the department.[Footnote 24] 
According to Disease Center officials, this information dashboard is 
intended to provide APHIS and its stakeholders the ability to quickly 
call up and display relevant sources of animal disease information and 
to nationally map producers' farms, disease outbreaks, and animal 
movement, among other patterns, onto a computer monitor. On the other 
hand, however, none of the planning documents we reviewed indicates 
how this information dashboard is to align with or support broader 
national-level biosurveillance efforts. 

Similarly, the planning documents make no mention of coordinating with 
other homeland security efforts to enhance disease surveillance in 
livestock and poultry. For example, the Department of Homeland 
Security has provided funding to develop tools for disease 
surveillance, such as an assay that tests swine saliva for foreign 
animal diseases, which can test samples from more than one animal at a 
time and may be faster and easier than collecting tissue or other 
biological samples. Officials involved in developing such diagnostic 
tools, however, told us that responsibilities shared between APHIS and 
the department have sometimes complicated development and use of such 
tools. As we have previously reported, federal agencies can use their 
strategic and annual performance plans as tools to drive collaboration 
with other agencies and partners and establish complementary goals and 
strategies for achieving results.[Footnote 25] Thus, an absence of 
shared measurable goals between APHIS and the Department of Homeland 
Security may be compromising both agencies' understanding of how their 
monitoring of animal health--coupled with disease surveillance, 
control, and eradication efforts--complement broader national 
biosurveillance goals. APHIS officials agreed that it is important for 
the agency's planning documents to show how the agency's efforts 
support national homeland security efforts to enhance the detection of 
biological threats. 

Conclusions: 

APHIS has long carried out important work to protect the nation's 
livestock and poultry against economically devastating infectious 
diseases and against the potential deadly effects of such diseases on 
people. Foot-and-mouth disease has not infected cattle or swine in the 
United States since 1929, and pseudorabies and brucellosis have been 
virtually eradicated in commercial swine and cattle. The near 
elimination of tuberculosis is considered one of the greatest animal 
and public health achievements in the United States. Moreover, given 
the changing disease landscape, APHIS has begun to craft a more 
comprehensive approach to monitoring animal health--one no longer 
restricted to eradicating only certain diseases. We commend the agency 
for its efforts (1) to develop a vision for its new approach and 
planning documents for undertaking it and (2) to collect better data 
from new and different sources and better synthesize and analyze 
information to identify potentially harmful new pathogens earlier. 
Nevertheless, APHIS has not to date developed goals or performance 
measures for its new approach; agency officials said they have plans 
to do so, but they did not provide a time frame. Even with its efforts 
to date, however, without integrating the vision in its planning 
documents into an overall strategy with associated goals and measures 
that are aligned with broader national homeland security efforts to 
detect biological threats, APHIS may not be ideally positioned to 
support national efforts to address the next threat to animal and 
human health. 

Recommendation for Executive Action: 

As APHIS develops goals and measures for its new approach to disease 
surveillance in livestock and poultry, we recommend that the Secretary 
of Agriculture direct the APHIS Administrator to integrate the 
agency's vision into an overall strategy, with associated goals and 
measures, that guides how APHIS's new approach will support national 
homeland security efforts to enhance the detection of biological 
threats. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report for review and comment to the 
Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Homeland 
Security. USDA and the Department of Homeland Security provided 
written comments, which are reproduced in appendixes VI and VII, 
respectively; these agencies also provided technical comments, which 
we incorporated as appropriate. The Department of Health and Human 
Services had no comments. 

In its written comments, USDA concurred with our recommendation that 
APHIS integrate the agency's vision into an overall strategy that 
guides how APHIS's new approach will support national homeland 
security efforts. USDA stated that APHIS will include better 
performance metrics in its planning efforts and develop more explicit 
linkages between its swine surveillance activities and other national 
homeland security efforts. 

In its letter, the Department of Homeland Security thanked us for the 
opportunity to review the draft report and noted that the department 
supports developments at APHIS to advance disease surveillance in 
animal and plant populations. The Department of Homeland Security also 
stated that it remains committed to working with its many partners, 
including those in the federal government, to better mitigate and 
defend against dynamic threats and maximize the ability to respond to 
and recover from attacks and disasters of all kinds. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretaries of 
Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security; 
appropriate congressional committees; and other interested parties. In 
addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff members have any questions regarding this report, 
please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or garciadiazd@gao.gov. Contact 
points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs 
may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this 
report are listed in appendix VIII. 

Signed by: 

Daniel Garcia-Diaz: 
Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Key Stakeholders in Disease Surveillance in Livestock and 
Poultry: 

Table 1 lists the primary federal, state, and private-sector 
organizations or groups that have a key role or stake in the 
surveillance of diseases in livestock and poultry. The list includes 
animal health organizations, human health organizations concerned with 
zoonotic diseases that might be transmitted between livestock and 
poultry and humans, and those organizations interested in monitoring 
diseases in livestock and poultry as part of broader national 
biosurveillance efforts. 

Table 1: Key Stakeholders in Disease Surveillance in Livestock and 
Poultry: 

Federal: 

Animal health: 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: Agricultural Research Service; 
Role: Research to improve agricultural production; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: Veterinarians and scientists in 
the Agricultural Research Service do research to support diagnostic 
testing, vaccines, disease management systems, and farm biosecurity 
measures, among other tools, to help the national efforts to detect, 
control, and eradicate animal diseases of national priority. 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); 
Role: Lead agency for animal health surveillance; 
Federal: 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: APHIS is responsible for 
implementing and conducting national measures to detect, control, or 
eradicate any livestock and poultry disease (such as drawing blood and 
diagnostic testing), including in animals at slaughterhouses, 
stockyards, or other points of concentration. The agency develops new 
and improves existing national strategies and technologies for dealing 
with intentional and unintentional introduction of animal diseases. 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); 
Subagency: Veterinary Services; 
Role: National veterinary authority; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: Veterinary Services is the 
office within APHIS that manages the nation's livestock disease 
surveillance, control, and eradication efforts. The office oversees 
the agency's surveillance planning, management, diagnosis, and 
analytical efforts to identify and respond to animal disease incidents. 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); 
Subagency: Veterinary Services; Center for Veterinary Biologics; 
Role: Regulation of biological products for diagnosis, prevention, or 
treatment of animal diseases; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The Center for Veterinary 
Biologics monitors and inspects biological products, including vaccines 
and diagnostic tests, to ensure that they are free of disease-producing 
agents, especially foreign animal diseases. It also tests the 
effectiveness of, and issues licenses and permits for the commercial 
use of, these products. 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); 
Subagency: Veterinary Services; National Animal Health Laboratory 
Network; 
Role: National coordination of state-level veterinary diagnostic 
laboratories; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The National Animal Health 
Laboratory Network connects and supports state-level member veterinary 
diagnostic laboratories with funding, infrastructure, training, common 
testing methods, and software platforms, among other things, to 
provide a national capacity to quickly and efficiently respond to and 
report animal disease outbreaks. 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); 
Subagency: Wildlife Services; 
Role: Wildlife damage management and research authority; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: Wildlife Services through its 
operational program and the National Wildlife Research Center employs 
veterinarians, biologists, and epidemiologists to research and 
mitigate damage caused by wildlife to public health and safety, 
agriculture, and natural resources, including diseases in wildlife. 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: Food Safety and Inspection Service; 
Role: Federal: Regulation of commercial animal products; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: Food Safety and Inspection 
Services inspectors conduct surveillance of livestock and meat and 
poultry products in slaughter facilities around the country looking for 
symptoms or abnormalities that could indicate the presence of a 
disease. 

Lead organization: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); 
Agency: National Institute of Food and Agriculture; 
Role: Support agricultural research, education and extension programs; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The National Institute of Food 
and Agriculture supports and funds agricultural research, education and 
extension programs. One of the programs it supports is the National 
Animal Health Laboratory Network, through programmatic leadership and 
funding for personnel, training, and infrastructure. 

Human health: 

Lead organization: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); 
Agency: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); 
Role: Lead agency for human health surveillance; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: CDC develops strategies for 
conducting surveillance of diseases in humans, including coordinating 
with USDA and other agencies to monitor zoonotic diseases. 

Lead organization: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); 
Agency: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); 
Subagency: National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, 
Influenza Division; 
Role: National human influenza surveillance center; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The Influenza Division of the 
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases conducts 
surveillance of influenza in humans, including human infections of 
influenza of animal origin. Researchers use surveillance information 
to monitor influenza trends and improve rapid reporting and 
identification of novel influenzas of animal origin to which humans 
might not have immunity. Researchers also use surveillance to guide 
the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines. 

Lead organization: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); 
Agency: National Institutes of Health; 
Role: National medical research agency; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The National Institutes of 
Health is made up of 27 research institutes and centers, including the 
National Library of Medicine, which houses over 200 databases, 
including GenBank, a genetic sequence database that provides the 
scientific community access to the most updated and comprehensive DNA 
sequence data related to diseases of concern. 

Biosurveillance coordination: 

Lead organization: Department of Homeland Security; 
Stakeholder: National Biosurveillance Integration Center; 
Role: Coordination of information to support national biosurveillance 
capability; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The National Biosurveillance 
Integration Center collects and analyzes reports from federal 
partners, including USDA and CDC, of incidents and outbreaks of 
diseases of national concern. The center then develops and provides 
synthesized reports and updates to the White House, federal partners, 
and state and local stakeholders on potential biosecurity threats, 
through analyzing aggregated information for animal disease, human 
disease, and environmental quality surveillance. 

Lead organization: Department of Homeland Security; 
Stakeholder: Office of Health Affairs; 
Role: Lead agency for national biosurveillance coordination; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The Office of Health Affairs 
provides medical, public health, and scientific expertise in support 
of the Department of Homeland Security's mission to prepare for, 
respond to, and recover from all threats. It serves as the principal 
advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Administrator of 
the Federal Emergency Management Agency on medical and public health 
issues. 

Lead organization: Department of Homeland Security; 
Stakeholder: Science and Technology Directorate; 
Role: Research and development of products and technology solutions to 
support homeland security activities; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: The Science and Technology 
Directorate provides science and technology research support to 
Homeland Security, strengthens the ability of communities to respond 
to disasters, and identifies and develops appropriate technologies to 
counter chemical, biological, and other threats to national security. 

Lead organization: Department of Homeland Security; 
Stakeholder: Science and Technology Directorate; 
Subagency: Zoonotic and Animal Disease Defense Center of Excellence; 
Role: Consortium of universities advancing animal health research; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: Established in 2010, the 
Zoonotic and Animal Disease Defense Center of Excellence is composed 
of the Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Center at Texas A&M 
University, and the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic 
Disease, at Kansas State University. These institutions share 
responsibilities to conduct research on foreign animal, emerging, and 
zoonotic diseases; develop countermeasures to these diseases; and 
develop models and information analysis tools. Homeland Security 
provides funding and oversight. 

State: 

Lead organization: State-or university-based member veterinary 
diagnostic laboratories; 
Agency: National Animal Health Laboratory Network member laboratories; 
Role: Animal disease diagnostic services; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: Network member laboratories 
provide expertise to identify animal disease incidents by performing 
routine diagnostic testing and monitoring diseases of concern. The 
laboratories conduct diagnostic testing in response to requests by 
individual veterinarians and producers and also to support federal 
targeted surveillance programs for selected domestic and foreign 
animal diseases to prevent and help control the spread of these 
diseases. 

Lead organization: State departments of agriculture; 
Agency: State veterinarians; 
Role: Principal state animal health official; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: State veterinarians provide 
services to support and regulate the health of livestock and poultry 
within their state boundaries. State veterinarians coordinate 
surveillance, detection, and reporting of diseases within their 
states. They maintain a list of reportable diseases that threaten the 
health of livestock, require accredited veterinarians to report 
disease occurrences, and then report these occurrences to USDA. These 
officials work with their federal veterinarians in the prevention, 
detection, and eradication of selected domestic and foreign diseases 
associated with national animal disease programs. 

Lead organization: State departments of health; 
Agency: State public health veterinarian; 
Role: Animal health liaison to state public health official; 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: State public health 
veterinarians monitor, investigate, and control zoonotic diseases in 
humans to protect public health. 

Private sector: 

Lead organization: Livestock and poultry industry; 
Agency: Livestock and poultry owners and producers; 
Role: Producers monitor the health of their flocks and herds, treat 
for illnesses, and vaccinate as necessary; Federal: 
Surveillance-related responsibilities: Livestock and poultry owners 
and producers regularly observe the health of their herds and flocks 
to diminish disease introduction, including monitoring for specific 
clinical signs. They work with private veterinarians to collect 
biological samples to test for diseases routinely or as needed when 
animals become ill. The data collected are normally proprietary and 
used to enhance and protect production, unless they pertain to a 
disease that is regulated and must be reported to USDA. 

Source: GAO analysis of USDA and state documents and information. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Status of Reportable Swine Diseases in the United States, 
2011: 

Table 2 shows the status in the United States of swine diseases that 
are to be reported to the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal 
and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) when they are confirmed to 
be present in swine.[Footnote 26] 

Table 2: Status of Reportable Swine Diseases in the United States, 
2011: 

Disease: African swine fever; 
Description: A viral disease endemic in Africa. The virus is highly 
contagious, spreading by direct and indirect contact, and persists for 
long periods both in pork products and in the environment. Forms of 
this virus vary in virulence from highly pathogenic forms that cause 
near 100 percent mortality, to low-virulence forms that can be 
difficult to diagnose. No vaccine or treatment is available; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Anthrax; 
Description: A bacterial disease found most commonly in wild and 
domestic herbivores, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. It can also 
infect humans exposed to infected animals, animal products, or spores 
of the anthrax bacterium. Rapid onset of respiratory and other 
symptoms are typical in cattle and sheep, which often die shortly after 
symptoms appear. Infected humans may experience sores on the skin's 
surface, intestinal discomfort, and influenza-like symptoms, which may 
cause death. Vaccines are available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Present. 

Disease: Aujeszky's disease (pseudorabies); 
Description: A viral disease found in swine that kills piglets and 
produces a lifelong infection in older pigs. It does not affect 
humans. Swine may transmit the disease to other species, such as 
cattle, sheep, cats, and dogs. In other animals, the disease causes 
intense itching and death. Vaccines are available; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Present. 

Disease: Brucellosis (brucella suis); 
Description: A bacterial disease found most commonly in swine, cattle, 
and bison. The disease is transmitted by direct contact with infected 
animals or with bodily fluids of infected animals. The primary 
symptoms of the disease are abortion in pregnant animals and lower 
fertility rates. Infected humans suffer severe intermittent fever. 
Vaccines are available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Present. 

Disease: Classical swine fever; 
Description: A highly contagious viral disease of both commercial and 
feral swine also known as hog cholera. Although not now found in the 
United States, the disease is found in Mexico. Pigs are infected 
through nose-to-nose and sexual contact or indirectly through a person 
or object, such as a farmhand's clothing. The disease results in 
fever, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and hemorrhages of the skin and may 
cause death. In breeding herds, the disease produces abortions. 
Vaccines are available but do not allow animal health officials to 
distinguish between infected and vaccinated animals; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Echinococosis, or hydatidosis; 
Description: An emerging parasitic zoonosis originating in eastern 
European and Asian countries is caused by a tapeworm found in dogs, 
sheep, cattle, goats, and pigs. It produces harmful, slowly enlarging 
cysts in the liver, lungs, and other organs; can be undetected for 
many years; and may be fatal. No vaccines are available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Presence suspected but not confirmed. 

Disease: Foot-and-mouth disease; 
Description: A highly contagious disease that affects cloven-hoofed 
animals, including swine, cattle, sheep, and deer. It does not affect 
humans. Although infected animals usually survive, they are afflicted 
with fever and blisterlike lesions on the tongue, lips, and feet that 
cause severe debilitation. Nations where this disease is present face 
strict livestock export restrictions. Vaccines are available, though 
no one universal vaccine is effective against all forms, and it is 
difficult for animal health officials to distinguish between infected 
and vaccinated animals; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Free[B]. 

Disease: Japanese encephalitis; 
Description: A serious viral disease found primarily in Asia and 
transmitted by mosquitoes to both animals and humans. Illness ranges 
from mild symptoms of fever and lethargy to severe brain infection. 
The disease can cause reproductive problems in pigs. Pigs and birds 
can have large amounts of the virus in their blood and serve as a 
major reservoir of the virus. One in four persons infected with 
Japanese encephalitis dies; others suffer permanent brain damage. A 
vaccine is available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Leptospirosis; 
Description: A zoonotic disease caused by infection with a spirochete 
bacterium; about 200 variations of spirochete bacteria have been 
identified. Clinical signs vary, but include abortions, stillbirth, 
weak piglets, and infertility. Accurate diagnosis is difficult. 
Vaccines are available but may not provide solid immunity. In humans, 
the disease can be lethal. No vaccines are available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Present. 

Disease: New World screwworm; 
Description: A parasitic infection of screwworms, which are blowfly 
larvae (maggots) that feed on living flesh usually on superficial 
wounds or mucous membranes. The parasites infest all mammals, rarely 
birds. Before its eradication from North and Central America, the 
disease caused devastating losses among livestock and wild animals. No 
vaccine is available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Nipah virus encephalitis; 
Description: A highly contagious, emerging disease that originates in 
bats and causes encephalitis and death in humans and neurological 
symptoms in livestock, including swine, making it a serious public 
health concern. Transmission to humans is generally through contact 
with contaminated tissues of pigs and other livestock that have been 
infected through bat urine or saliva. No vaccine is available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Old World screwworm; 
Description: Similar to New World screwworm, but the parasites are a 
different type of blowfly; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Porcine cysticercosis; 
Description: A parasitic infection of tapeworms, which invade a host's 
intestinal tract, muscles, brain, and other tissue, causing 
neurological, visual, and other physiological problems. The parasites 
are spread when humans or pigs consume undercooked meat or come in 
contact with flies. Vaccines are available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Absent during 2011 reporting period. 

Disease: Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome; 
Description: A viral disease first identified in the 1980s and 
widespread globally at present, the syndrome is characterized by 
respiratory distress in swine and lowered birth rates, abortions, 
stillbirths, and weak infants. Not all affected swine display 
symptoms. Vaccines are available; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Present. 

Disease: Rabies; 
Description: A viral disease of the central nervous system of mammals, 
including feral swine that involves an extremely high mortality rate. 
Vaccines can protect pets, as well as people exposed to these animals, 
but the maintenance of rabies viruses in wildlife complicates control; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Present. 

Disease: Rinderpest; 
Description: A viral disease of cattle and sometimes called cattle 
plague. Rinderpest can also infect buffalo, feral swine, goats, and 
sheep. Most susceptible are cattle, which suffer from diarrhea, 
dehydration, and fever and often die; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Swine vesicular disease; 
Description: A viral disease clinically indistinguishable from foot-
and-mouth disease. This disease produces vesicles, or ulcers, on the 
coronary bands (where the skin and hide join with the hoof); heels of 
the feet; and occasionally on the lips, tongue, snout, and teats. 
Severe cases occur where pigs are housed on abrasive floors in damp 
conditions. No vaccine is available; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Free[A]. 

Disease: Transmissible gastroenteritis; 
Description: A highly infectious viral disease in piglets caused by a 
corona virus. Provokes vomiting and diarrhea. The disease destroys 
villi--small fingerlike structures--in the small intestine. Mortality 
can be 100 percent in newborn piglets. Vaccines are available, but 
results have been variable; 
Affects humans? No; 
Status: Present. 

Disease: Trichinellosis; 
Description: A parasitic infection of adult worms in the small 
intestine of host species, including pigs, humans, and other flesh-
eating mammals. The worms plant their larvae in the hosts' muscle 
tissue. The disease is transmitted to humans in raw or undercooked 
meat from infected livestock or game. This disease can cause influenza-
like symptoms and weakness and lead to death in humans. In animals, 
the infection is often unapparent. No vaccine exists; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Presence suspected but not confirmed. 

Disease: Tularemia; 
Description: A bacterial disease spread by infected animals, through 
the air, ingestion, ticks, and deer flies. Also called rabbit fever, 
tularemia occurs naturally worldwide and is considered a potential 
biological weapon. The disease can display from mild to severe 
influenza-like symptoms in humans and animals. No vaccine is available; 
Affects humans? Yes; 
Status: Present. 

Source: GAO analysis of USDA documents and information. 

Note: The year 2011 is the last year for which data were available from 
APHIS. 

[A] The term "free" refers to the absence of a disease, meaning that 
the disease has been eradicated or never existed. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Creation of a Novel Human Influenza Virus in 2011: 

When influenza viruses reproduce, they can exchange gene segments in a 
process known as reassortment--a genetic shuffling--that can create 
new influenza viruses containing gene segments that may have 
originated in different host animals. In 2011, the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 12 cases of a novel influenza 
virus called an H3N2 variant virus, and in 2012, 309 cases of this 
virus were reported.[Footnote 27] The genetic makeup of this virus 
showed that it was derived from (1) a virus that had been circulating 
in swine and (2) the human H1N1 virus that caused the 2009 influenza 
pandemic. Thanks to still earlier genetic shuffling, the gene segments 
in this novel 2011 influenza virus came from humans, birds, and swine, 
as illustrated in figure 4. 

Figure 4: Creation of a Novel Human Influenza Virus in 2011: 

[Refer to PDF for image: Interactive Graphic illustration] 

Instructions: Move mouse from left to right over blue arrow in lower 
left in order to see how the segments from the existing viruses 
combine to create the 2011 human H3N2 variant virus. For a printable 
version of this figure, see appendix V. 

Sources: GAO and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

[A] From 1998-2011 H3N2 influenza viruses were identified in U.S. 
swine, which possessed gene segments derived from human, avian, and 
swine viruses. 

[BI] n 2011, the CDC confirmed 12 humans cases of a novel influenza 
H3N2 variant virus containing one gene segment from the human H1N1 
virus responsible for the 2009 pandemic (circle) and other gene 
segments from the H3N2 virus that had been circulating in swine from 
1998 through 2011 (hexagons). These gene segments in turn had their 
origins in humans (blue) and birds (green), as well as swine 
(raspberry). 

[C] In spring 2009, an H1N1 influenza virus of swine origin caused a 
worldwide pandemic in humans. The virus was subsequently passed back to 
swine, infecting animals worldwide. 

[End of figure] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: List of Selected APHIS Plans Related to Disease 
Surveillance in Livestock and Poultry: 

Plan name: Veterinary Services Strategic Plan FY 2006 to FY 2011[A]; 
Key characteristics: Recognizes potential bioterrorism threats, as well 
as naturally occurring threats to the health of animals, and 
establishes goals and objectives to monitor for and protect against 
these threats; does not include performance measures; 
Date: Undated. 

Plan name: Veterinary Services: A New Perspective; 
Key characteristics: 
Establishes a new strategic vision and mission for APHIS's Veterinary 
Services, recognizing that in preventing and detecting animal diseases 
and protecting animal health, the agency also plays an important role 
in safeguarding the health of people and the environment; 
Date: Undated. 

Plan name: The Secure Pork Supply Plan; 
Key characteristics: Proposal to establish controls and procedures 
that will allow swine to continue to move between production 
facilities and processing plants in the event of an outbreak of a 
foreign animal disease; 
Date: 2011. 

Plan name: Veterinary Services[B] 2015 Project: One Health Strategic 
Direction; 
Key characteristics: Establishes general goals and indicators of 
success for improving the global health of people, animals, 
ecosystems, and society but nothing specific to the new surveillance 
approach in livestock and poultry; 
Date: 2011. 

Plan name: Veterinary Services 2015 Project: Surveillance for Action 
Strategic Direction; 
Key characteristics: Recommends steps to move APHIS away from a 
disease eradication surveillance approach to a more comprehensive 
animal health surveillance approach, such as collecting a wider range 
of data from a greater variety of sources to improve the ability to 
detect and control emerging diseases; 
Date: 2011. 

Plan name: Implementation of Comprehensive and Integrated Swine 
Surveillance; 
Key characteristics: Proposal to move away from surveillance 
activities focused on eradicating specific diseases of swine to a 
focus on activities that monitor overall swine health; 
Date: 2010. 

Plan name: National Surveillance Plan for Swine Influenza Virus in 
Pigs; 
Key characteristics: Establishes objectives, sampling methods, and 
procedures for collecting and analyzing genetic information on 
influenza viruses found in commercial swine; 
Date: 2010. 

Plan name: The Information Technology Roadmap; 
Key characteristics: Establishes a plan to modernize APHIS's animal 
disease information systems, ensure data security, electronically link 
key data systems, and create standards for data entry; 
Date: 2009. 

Source: GAO analysis of USDA information. 

Note: This table lists planning documents that USDA's Veterinary 
Services and we identified as key to surveillance. USDA's planning 
documents also include several documents that provide guidance on 
foreign animal disease preparedness and response, such as plans to 
address highly pathogenic avian influenza, foot-and-mouth disease, 
classical swine fever, and emerging disease incidents. 

[A] FY = fiscal year. 

[End of table] 

Appendix V: Printable Interactive Graphics: 

Contains printable graphics for Figure 3 and 4. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Agriculture: 

USDA: 
United States Department of Agriculture: 
Office of the Secretary: 
Washington. D.C. 20250: 

April 29, 2013: 

Mr. Daniel Garcia-Diaz, Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment Issues: 
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) appreciates the 
opportunity to review and comment on the GAO's Draft Report titled 
"Homeland Security: An Overall Strategy Is Needed to Strengthen 
Livestock and Poultry Disease Surveillance" (13-424). We have 
addressed the Recommendation for Executive Action. 

GAO Recommendation: 

As APHIS develops goals and measures for its new approach to disease 
surveillance in livestock and poultry, we recommend that the Secretary 
of Agriculture direct the APHIS Administrator to integrate the 
agency's vision into an overall strategy, with associated goals and 
measures, that guides how APHIS's new approach will support national 
homeland security efforts to enhance the detection of biological 
threats. 

USDA Response: 

USDA concurs with this recommendation. USDA's Animal and Plant Health 
Inspection Service (APHIS) is developing and implementing its new 
surveillance approach on a commodity-by-commodity basis. APHIS has 
produced numerous planning documents guiding its vision for a National 
Animal Health Surveillance System, and also has a strategy for 
Comprehensive and Integrated Swine Surveillance. APHIS will include 
better performance metrics in its planning efforts. For example, in 
the next twelve months, APHIS will develop performance measures for 
its Comprehensive and Integrated Swine Surveillance. Further, APHIS 
will also develop more explicit linkages between its swine 
surveillance activities and the National Strategy for Biosurveillance 
(signed by the President 7/31/2012), the Interagency Policy Committee 
called the Disaster Resilience Group's (DRG) implementation of the 
National Strategy for Biosurveillance, and the surveillance activities 
described in the Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-9). In 
the future, as APHIS develops new surveillance plans for the other 
commodities, performance measures will be incorporated into those 
plans. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Edward Avalos: 
Under Secretary: 
Marketing and Regulatory Programs: 

[End of section] 

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security: 
Washington, DC 20528: 

April 24, 2013: 

Daniel Garcia-Diaz: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment Issues: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Re: Draft Report GAO-13-424, "Homeland Security: An Overall Strategy 
Is Needed to Strengthen Livestock and Poultry Disease Surveillance" 

Dear Mr. Garcia-Diaz, 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on this draft 
report. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appreciates the 
U.S. Government Accountability Office's (GAO's) work in planning and 
conducting its review and issuing this report. 

DHS understands the importance of and supports the need to strengthen 
surveillance practices for livestock and poultry disease. Within the 
Department, the National Biosurveillance Integration Center's (NBIC's) 
primary mission is to enhance the capability of the Federal Government 
to rapidly identify, characterize, localize, and track a biological 
event of national concern. NBIC strives to achieve this by integrating 
and analyzing data relating to human health, animal, plant, food, and 
environmental monitoring systems, both nationally and internationally. 

NBIC also disseminates alerts and other information to Member Agencies 
and, in coordination with them, to other agencies of state, local, and 
tribal governments, as appropriate, to enhance the ability of such 
agencies to respond to a biological event of national concern.
NBIC supports developments at the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
(USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to advance disease 
surveillance in animal and plant populations. NBIC is actively engaged 
with USDA to advance national directives and policies, including those 
related to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9. DHS remains 
committed to working with its many partners — including those across 
the Federal Government, public and private sectors, and 
internationally — to strengthen the Homeland Security enterprise to 
better mitigate and defend against dynamic threats, minimize risks, 
and maximize the ability to respond to and recover from attacks and 
disasters of all kinds. 

We noted the report does not contain any recommendations specifically 
directed to DHS; however, we thank you for the opportunity to review 
and comment on this draft report. Technical comments were previously 
provided under separate cover. Please feel free to contact me if you 
have any questions. We look forward to working with you in the future. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Jim H. Crumpacker: 
Director: 
Departmental GAO-OIG Liaison Office: 

[End of section] 

Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Daniel Garcia-Diaz, (202) 512-3841 or garciadiazd@gao.gov. 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, Mary Denigan-Macauley 
(Assistant Director), Kevin Bray, Ellen W. Chu, Kirsten Lauber, Dan 
Royer, Kiki Theodoropoulos, Ginny Vanderlinde, and Karen Villafana 
made key contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] We have reported that foot-and-mouth disease is a highly 
contagious viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals, such as cattle, 
swine, and sheep. Infected animals develop a fever and blisters on 
their tongues, lips, and between their hooves. Many animals recover 
from a foot-and-mouth disease infection, but the disease leaves them 
debilitated and causes losses in meat and milk production. Foot-and-
mouth disease does not have human health implications. It can be 
spread by animals, people, or materials that bring the virus into 
physical contact with susceptible animals. The disease is also 
considered a potential agent for agroterrorism. A foot-and-mouth 
disease outbreak has not occurred in the United States since 1929, 
although the disease is considered widespread in parts of Africa, 
Asia, Europe, and South America. See GAO, Homeland Security: Actions 
Needed to Improve Response to Potential Terrorist Attacks and Natural 
Disasters Affecting Food and Agriculture, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-652] (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 19, 
2011). 

[2] GAO, Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from the H1N1 Pandemic Should Be 
Incorporated into Future Planning, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-632] (Washington, D.C.: June 27, 
2011). 

[3] The Department of Homeland Security has defined biosurveillance as 
"the science and practice of managing human, animal, plant, food, and 
environmental health-related data and information for early warning of 
threats and hazards, early detection of events, and rapid 
characterization of the event so that effective actions can be taken 
to mitigate adverse health, social, and economic effects." See 
Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention, National Biosurveillance Strategy for Human Health, 
version 2.0 (Atlanta, Ga.: February 2010). Disease surveillance in 
livestock and poultry is a component of biosurveillance. 

[4] Pub. L. No. 107-171, tit. X, subtit. E, §§ 10401-10418, 116 Stat. 
494 (2002) (codified as amended at 7 U.S.C. §§ 8301-8317). 

[5] GAO, Biosurveillance: Developing a Collaboration Strategy Is 
Essential to Fostering Interagency Data and Resource Sharing, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-171] (Washington, D.C.: 
Dec. 18, 2009). 

[6] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-652]. 

[7] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-171]. 

[8] Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 establishes a national 
policy for federal agencies known as sector-specific agencies, which 
are responsible for particular industry sectors, such as 
transportation, energy, and communications, to identify and prioritize 
U.S. critical infrastructure and key resources and to protect them 
from terrorist attack; Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10 
identifies actions to bolster the nation's biodefense capabilities; 
and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 21 establishes a national 
strategy for public health and medical preparedness that is aimed at 
transforming the nation's approach to protecting the health of the 
American people against all disasters. 

[9] The term feral refers both to domesticated animals that have 
escaped from domestication and become wild and to naturally wild 
animals descended from the same species as domesticated animals. While 
the Department of the Interior plays a critical role carrying out 
disease surveillance of wild animals, we did not include Interior's 
activities because they were beyond the scope of our review. 

[10] Throughout this report, we use the term industry to denote 
commercial producers of livestock and poultry. 

[11] Under the National Veterinary Accreditation Program, APHIS 
approves veterinarians to perform certain official functions on its 
behalf. Veterinarians may perform duties only in the state within 
which they were accredited and maintain accreditation only as long as 
they comply with standards established in federal regulations, 
including reporting the suspected presence of certain animal diseases 
to APHIS. 9 C.F.R. pt. 161. 

[12] Classical swine fever is a highly contagious viral disease of 
swine not currently known to exist in the United States, which can 
cause major economic damage as a result of excessive animal illness, 
death, and trade restrictions. 

[13] Pseudorabies is a viral disease of swine that may cause 
respiratory illness and death. 

[14] GAO, National Animal Identification System: USDA Needs to Resolve 
Several Key Implementation Issues to Achieve Rapid and Effective 
Disease Traceback, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-592] 
(Washington, D.C.: July 6, 2007). 

[15] The decrease was due in part to the removal in 2011 of targeted 
funding from APHIS's appropriation and the reduction in 2012 of 
funding for certain diseases, which affected funding for some 
cooperative agreements. 

[16] GAO, Biosurveillance: Nonfederal Capabilities Should Be 
Considered in Creating a National Biosurveillance Strategy, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-55] (Washington, D.C.: 
Oct. 31, 2011). 

[17] In 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services transferred 
$27.75 million in supplemental funding to USDA to fund the agency's 
capabilities to prepare for and respond to pandemic influenza after 
the 2009 novel H1N1 influenza A outbreak. Of that funding, APHIS 
received $25.75 million for prevention and surveillance activities, 
and the Agricultural Research Service received $2 million to develop 
improved prevention and detection tools. 

[18] GAO, Veterinarian Workforce: Actions Are Needed to Ensure 
Sufficient Capacity for Protecting Public and Animal Health, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-178] (Washington, D.C.: 
Feb. 4, 2009). 

[19] Government Performance and Results Act, Pub. L. No. 103-62 
(1993), 107 Stat. 285, amended by GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, Pub. 
L. No. 111-352, 142 Stat. 3866. 

[20] GAO, Homeland Security: Agriculture Inspection Program Has Made 
Some Improvements, but Management Challenges Persist, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-885] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 
2012). 

[21] USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary 
Services: A New Perspective (Washington, D.C.: 2011). 

[22] USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary 
Services Strategic Plan FY 2006 to FY 2011 (Washington, D.C.: undated). 

[23] USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary 
Services 2015 Project: Surveillance for Action Strategic Direction 
(Washington, D.C.: 2011) and Centers for Epidemiology and Animal 
Health, National Surveillance Unit, "Implementation of Comprehensive 
and Integrated Swine Surveillance," (Fort Collins, Co., Jan. 22, 2010). 

[24] According to Department of Homeland Security budget documents, 
the department has invested $2.2 million in developing a national web-
based software platform to support what it calls a biosurveillance 
common operating picture. APHIS's Emergency Response Support System is 
to be one component of that larger system. 

[25] GAO, Agencies Need Better Collaboration to Reduce the Risk of 
Animal Related Diseases, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-9] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 8, 2010). 

[26] These diseases are also reportable to the World Organisation for 
Animal Health, formerly known as the Office International des 
Epizooties (OIE). The organization adopted its present name in May 
2003 and has kept its historical abbreviation OIE. 

[27] According to CDC, influenza viruses that normally circulate in 
pigs are called "variant" viruses when they are found in humans. A 
USDA official said that APHIS had detected the H3N2 group of viruses 
in 2010 and confirmed the viruses' ability to infect and circulate 
among swine before human infections were reported in 2012. 

[End of section] 

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