Core activity #03
The 2nd Thailand Wildlife Health Information Management
Virtual Workshop
After an initial virtual workshop on wildlife health information management was conducted in November 2020 to provide an overview of the purpose of wildlife health information management, the second virtual workshop was conducted on March 21-23, 2022, to identify the decisions that need to be made regarding wildlife diseases, the current and future data streams, and the functional tools needed to assist with decision making. In this workshop, the welcome remarks were to be honored and introduced by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Walasinee Sakcamduang, Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University. Facilitators were served by Dr. Jonathan Sleeman, center director of USGS NWHC, and Asst. Prof. Dr.Sarin Suwanpakdee, director of MoZWE.
Three systems currently in use for wildlife health information management were overview by the following speakers.
- Dr. Sarah Olson, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), overviewed the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) platform.
(https://oneworldonehealth.wcs.org/Initiatives/SMARTforhealth.aspx) - Dr. Kevin Brown, Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC), overviewed the Wildlife Health Intelligence Platform (WHIP).
(http://blog.healthywildlife.ca/the-wildlife-health-intelligence-platform-data-management-for-the-modern-world/) - Dr. Neil V Baertlein, USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC), overviewed Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership; Event Reporting System (WHISPers).
(https://whispers.usgs.gov/).
Current activities on wildlife disease surveillance in Thailand were informed by Dr. Kirana Noradechanon from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Conservation (DNP), Dr. Pawares Panyasomboonying from the Department of Livestock Development (DLD), and Dr. Araya Boonkasemsanti from Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR).
In the workshop, the participants discussed various aspects of wildlife health information management outlined; for example, What decisions regarding wildlife health need to be made? What types of data and information are useful?, etc. Notes were captured using the MURAL application.
In conclusion, the lack of a centralized wildlife health information management system was identified as a key gap in wildlife disease surveillance capacity and One Health data sharing. Collective agreement on the entity tasked and establishment of a surveillance network with a clear purpose, governance structure, and associated inter-agency agreements are important.
The participants recommend that taking an incremental and iterative approach to development would be helpful. The current systems (SMART, WHIP, and WHISPers) would provide the majority of functions. Adoption of SMART and WHIP as the first phase for the basis of data collection and management and WHISPers as a second phase for a secure way to create networks and share data with trusted partners are recommended.
