Document Date: May/01/2022
A practical framework for developing case definitions for animal diseases
A case definition is a set of specific criteria used to distinguish between an individual, pen or farm infected by a pathogenic agent (a case), and one that is not infected (a non-case) in a given place at a given time. Case definitions allow apples-to-apples comparisons for disease surveillance, response, and reporting.
This step-by-step guide was developed collaboratively by the Canadian Animal Health Surveillance System (CAHSS) and the Veterinarian Surveillance and Epidemiology Network (VSEN) to provide a consistent, recipe-book approach to developing case definitions.