You can view the disease surveillance analyses and data collected by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to identify new or re-emerging threats to animal and public health.

Veterinary scanning surveillance at APHA is managed by the Surveillance Intelligence Unit (SIU).

Monthly surveillance reports

The SIU publishes monthly reports on disease monitoring in livestock and poultry.

Focus articles published in journals

APHA publishes focus articles in Veterinary Record which cover seasonal disease threats and emerging disease trends.

All articles are open access.

Quarterly and annual species reports

The SIU publishes periodic reports for livestock and wildlife covering:

• new and re-emerging diseases and threats
• changes in disease patterns
• unusual diagnoses
• horizon scanning

Livestock reports

Read reports on:

• avian surveillance and emerging threats
• cattle surveillance and emerging threats
• exotic and farmed species surveillance and emerging threats
• pig surveillance and emerging threats
• sheep and goats surveillance and emerging threats

Wildlife reports

Read the report on wildlife surveillance and emerging threats.

Small animal reports

Read the Small Animal Expert Group annual summary.

Specialist group reports

Read reports on:

• chemical food safety in livestock
• parasitology
  • literature review and horizon scanning from the parasitology group
  • ectoparasite examination for sheep scab in Wales
• zoonoses and veterinary public health threat

Information notes

We publish information notes in response to circumstances where vets may require further guidance, such as as:

• unusual seasonal events, events
• emerging diseases
• outbreaks andof outbreaks.
  non-statutory disease

VIDA reports

The SIU stores its data in the Veterinary Investigation Diagnosis Analysis (VIDA) database.

VIDA contains records of every diagnostic submission from livestock and wildlife in Great Britain since 1975.

Since 2017, APHA has produced an annual VIDA report on Tableau:

• VIDA report 2024
• VIDA report 2023
• VIDA report 2022
• VIDA report 2021
• VIDA report 2020
• VIDA report 2019
• VIDA report 2018
• VIDA report 2017

You can access older annual VIDA Reports in the national archives.

Disease surveillance dashboards

Animal disease surveillance data for Great Britain collected by APHA and Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).

Diagnoses are recorded for the month in which the submissions were received. The dashboards are updated on a monthly basis, adding all diagnoses allocated since the previous month’s update.

You can view each dashboard on Tableau:

• avian disease
• cattle disease
• pig disease
• sheep disease

Other dashboards

• bat rabies
• Brachyspira hyodysenteriae isolate MLST in pigs
• porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome

How to use the dashboards

To learn more about how to use the dashboards, see the sheep disease surveillance dashboard video. 

Read more detailed information about the dashboards and their limitations.

Livestock population reports and maps

View population density maps of farm animals in Great Britain published by the Livestock Demographic Data Group (LDDG).

You can view data and maps for the:

• cattle population
• pig population
• poultry population
• sheep and goat population

APHA science blog

Subscribe to the APHA science blog with news and updates from APHA.

Videos

APHA produces and publishes videos on its YouTube channel.

You can also watch our:

• animal disease surveillance playlist
• Surveillance Intelligence forum 2023 playlist

Alerts

APHA has 3 alert systems for vets:

• exotic notifiable diseases
• Endemic and Emerging Disease Alert System (EEDAS) for farmed animals
• SmART (Small Animal Risks and Threats)