Abstract
Anicom has acquired the license of operating “Animal health insurance” from the Financial Services Agency and has now been issued the insurance policies to more than 430 thousands animals (89% dogs, 10% cats, and 1% birds/rabbits/ferrets) as at December, 2012.
When animals are registered to Anicom’s insurance system, the individual data (species, breed, sex and age etc.) of animals are recorded in the computer database systems. Information on insurance coverage such as disease classification, time, breeds, areas and hospital, can be accumulated in above computer database. These insurance coverage data can be utilized for epidemiological study on animal diseases and the results can be useful in preventing future disease occurrence. For example, foreign body ingestions by dogs are dangerous behavior which can result in deaths, and careful monitoring of these behaviors should be carried out by veterinary personnel. We investigated data in regard to incidence of foreign body ingestion in order to understand the current situation and to prevent future incidence.
Dogs can be a good sentinel animals for human health since environmental conditions and many diseases are shared between dogs and humans. We are trying to expand our epidemiological research using insurance data for the sake of mutual benefits and bonds between animals and humans.
