Wildlife pathogen surveillance in Israel to inform human and animal infectious disease control: A prioritization exercise

In December 2013, as a part of the establishment of the ‘Israel Wildlife Diseases Surveillance’(IWDS) Program, building on the ‘One Health’ approach for human, livestock and wildlife disease control, a prioritization exercise using a validated risk analysis method was carried out by distributing online questionnaires to 86 relevant experts. The results were subsequently presented in the prioritization of a wildlife surveillance workshop, compiling the risk assessments of 51 pathogens by human, livestock, wildlife and total risks. The endemic diseases, brucellosis, rabies and foot and mouth disease ranked as the highest risks. The Risk Analysis method was used successfully in the prioritization exercise. Furthermore, the results combined surveillance priorities of relevant stakeholders and will be used in planning and implementing the national surveillance program.