Early warning systems for life-threatening companion animal diseases: Heartworm and Tick Alert
Sahil Arora1, Nicholas Clark, Ricardo Soares Magalhaes 1University Of Queensland, Gatton, Queensland, Australia
Abstract
Tick Paralysis and Heartworm disease are high impact vector-borne diseases in veterinary practice. The existence of real-time disease surveillance platforms demonstrating where canine patients are more likely to be exposed will allow veterinarians and companion animal owners to closely monitor trends, guide clinical decisions and ascertain potential risk to their pets.
A large collection of consultations, 2,754,324 for tick paralysis and 1,429,749 for heartworm, provided by VetCompass, a nationwide data asset of companion animal clinical records, is utilised. Natural Language Processing algorithms were used to find incidence in the examination reports. An ecological spatiotemporal model is developed to predict the timing and location of areas at high risk. A web-based surveillance platform with interactive visualizations is created using data outputs from the models.
A total of 30,335 cases of tick paralysis were found and a total of 1889 animals tested positive for heartworm. The model outputs region specific forecast for a year and standardised relative risk. The web-based surveillance platform provides users access to historical trends of both diseases in different regions, a forecast showing the how the future trend of diseases might look like in different regions and, a map of regions with predictive risk of increase in cases.
The development of HeartwormAlert and TickAlert using the VetCompass Australia data asset constitute the most significant digital surveillance platforms for high impact companion animal diseases. Their utilisation by veterinarians and dog owners will improve clinical care and community awareness to reduce the public health burden of both diseases.
Biography
Hi, My name is Sahil Arora. I have done my studies in economics and data science. Currently I’m working at the School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland as a data and software engineer. I create systems architecture and solutions to deliver information to the end user clearly and efficiently.