Veterinary Epidemiology and Zoonosis

PREVENTION

• Prevention of disease in an epidemiological sense means all measures to exclude disease from an unaffected population of animals. It includes,
  • Measures for the exclusion of an infectious organism from a geographic area in which it is now absent. Usual method is quarantine.
  • Measures to protect a given population from diseases that already occur in its geographic area.
  • Usual method is mass immunization, mass prophylactic treatment and environmental control.
• There are three types of prevention
  • Primary prevention
  • Secondary prevention
  • Tertiary prevention

Primary prevention

• Includes those activities directed towards preventing exposure to causal factors.
  • Example: Quarantine and vaccination.

Secondary prevention

• Includes those activities designed to detect disease process as early as possible before clinical disease occurs.
  • Examples
    • Screening test to detect TB, Brucellosis
    • Somatic cell count to detect mastitis
    • Regular examination of postpartum cow and metabolic profiles

Tertiary prevention

• Prevention by treatment.