The new WAHIS Alerts application from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) delivers alerts and animal health information from the World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS) direct to your mobile phone or tablet.Paris, 16 May 2016 – In today’s globalised world, infectious diseases can spread dramatically in a very short space of time. Early detection of diseases at their animal source is essential to bring them under control quickly, thus protecting both human and animal populations. To ensure transparency in the animal health field, the 180 Member Countries of the OIE have an obligation to report the animal disease situation in their territories via the OIE World Animal health Information System, WAHIS.
To provide public access to world animal health data, the OIE makes the WAHIS portal available on its website. It gives free access to data on animal diseases, including zoonoses, arranged according to country, region, month and year.
To increase the ease and speed with which this information can be accessed, the OIE has just launched the WAHIS Alerts application, which enables disease alerts (immediate notifications) and OIE follow-up reports to be sent direct to your mobile phone or tablet.
Users can choose to receive only those notifications and reports related to the regions and diseases that interest them, thus enabling them to keep up to date with the most relevant latest health news.
The application is free to download from the Android, Apple and Windows applications stores.
More information about WAHIS
One of the core missions of the OIE is to guarantee transparency in the animal health situation worldwide, and its 180 Member Countries have a legal obligation to notify the Organisation of any cases of OIE-listed diseases (of which there are 118) and any case of an emerging disease. They must report occurrences of disease in domestic and wild animals, both terrestrial and aquatic. These notifications help to improve the health and welfare of animals and are a means of ensuring the safety of international trade without creating unjustified sanitary barriers.
Since 2005, information on OIE-listed diseases in domestic and wild animals has been available to everyone through the WAHIS interface. This interface can also be used to access other information, such as data on animal populations and the human and material resources of Veterinary Services and laboratories.