There are eight veterinary schools in the United Kingdom. None of them provides special training for students who want to become civil servant. Veterinary education is provided based on the Day One Competency prescribed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, which includes targets related to public health. Veterinarians who want to undertake official duties as official veterinarian have to get training courses organized by private providers. In Spain there are 13 veterinary schools. The educational targets in veterinary schools are set in such a way that they meet the Spanish regulations and consequently the EU directives. Official duties are undertaken mostly by full time civil servant veterinarians employed either by the central government or autonomous state governments. The Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca, Alimentacion y Medio Ambiente provides on-line materials for continued professional education.

Meat inspection data summarize and integrate the results of meat inspections at slaughterhouses conducted by official veterinarians with local government meat inspection centers. Although meat inspection data has been utilized for surveys and research and fed back to producers to improve hygiene in meat production, few cases have been reported in which anything more than listing or drawing graphs of meat inspection data is performed. However, it is difficult to determine objectively whether livestock breeding conditions tend to become better or worse based on the enumeration of figures or quantity of change in graphs. That is, statistical methods that provide criteria on which the decisions made by producers, veterinarians, and administrators are based are needed. Time series analysis is a suitable method to analyze meat inspection data as it comprises sequential time series data. Since time series analysis involves a variety of methods, to analyze meat inspection data, it is necessary to select a proper method based on the statistical distribution of data. Therefore, the purposes of the present study were to identify the optimal method for using multiple models properly according to the distribution of data and to analyze data with different types of distributions comprehensively.

Investigations were carried out to obtain the favorable conditions for the SARIMA model and two-part model to detect anomalies in the condemnation rate and number. It became clear that the SARIMA model is suitable for analyzing condemnation rate data that do not deviate excessively around 0% or 100%, as the logit-transformed condemnation rate is assumed to be normally distributed. Our results also showed that a two-part model with autoexponential regression can adequately deal with data involving an excessive number of zeros. Therefore, the present study paves the way to enable providing administrative information regarding various diseases based on objective criteria using the SARIMA model for diseases in which the data rarely contain zeros and the two-part model for diseases in which the data contain many zeros.

Pathogen detection in the meat inspection plays an important role for public health. Prevention of raw material contamination is particularly important for control of food poisoning caused by Campylobacter and Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). Application of highly sensitive and rapid screening methods for these pathogens is therefore required. With the progress of globalization, the transboundary movement of humans, goods and animals (including meat, animal feed, and waste) has been increasing throughout the world. Transboundary animal diseases (TAD), such as African swine fever, foot-and-mouth disease and highly pathogenic avian influenza, cause vast economic losses. While it is crucial to identify the sources and transmission routes of the spread, such strategies are rarely successful due to the low contamination level in environmental samples. We developed the micro-amount of virion enrichment technique (MiVET) for elucidation of their circulation dynamics in the environment, and for the early diagnosis of TAD and strengthening of early containment scheme.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious and economically important disease of cloven-hoofed animals. Epidemiological modeling has been recognized as a useful tool for studying the spread of the disease under different environments and control measures. In this study, we developed an FMD transmission simulator (Japan simulation model of animal infectious diseases simulator FMD, JSMIN-FMD), which is a user-friendly simulation system, allowing decision makers to use for evaluation of the effectiveness and efficacy of control strategies upon the simulated outbreaks. This simulator employs a stochastic spatially explicit individual-based model to generate between-farm transmission in a selected area. To run the simulator, farm data including farm sizes, animal species, and geographical locations, is required. Parameters concerning the transmission process and control measures are also necessary. The transmission process is composed of two parts, namely transmission before the movement restrictions and that after movement restrictions. Long-distance transmissions were generated reflecting the movement of animals, humans, and vehicles in the area. The default setting parameters of these movement patterns such as the frequency and distance of movements were based on the survey results conducted in the livestock farming areas. Estimation of the movement distance is also available based on the farm density in the simulated area by a developed algorithm. Local spread was produced by transmission kernels estimated from the previous FMD epidemics in Japan in 2010 and those in Europe in 2001. Control measure scenarios include prompt culling, preemptive culling, and vaccination. For simulating these scenarios, culling or vaccinating capacities and prioritization of farms to be culled or vaccinated can be defined in advance. Simulation outputs include graphs and tables on epidemic size, economic impact, and required human resources as well as maps showing the way of the disease spread. The simulator could provide practical help for decision makers to understand how the disease spread and how best to control the disease in planning control strategies against FMD.

Since oysters bioaccumulate microbes in environmental water, there is a contamination risk of human fecal viral pathogens such as noroviruses (NoV). Pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV), an abundant plant virus in human feces and environmental waters, recently has been recognized as a candidate of fecal indicator virus in environmental water. In this study, the prevalence of PMMoV and NoV among oysters (138 batches) collected from 13 harvesting areas was investigated using RT-PCR between July 2016 and March 2017 in Japan. PMMoV and NoV were detected in 116 (84.1%) and 67 (48.6%) batches, respectively, and they were simultaneously detected in 52 batches (37.7%). PMMoV was detected through the investigation period but NoV was detected only in the winter season. PMMoV was detected in oysters collected from 12 harvesting areas. Our results clearly show that in Japan PMMoV is high prevalent in oysters, and suggest that further quantitative analysis on PMMoV and fecal viral pathogens in oysters will be needed in order to use PMMoV as a human fecal viral contamination indicator in oysters and their harvesting areas.