EFSA info‐session on Avian Influenza surveillance data in the context of the SIGMA Project

This report describes the content and the outcomes of the info‐session held by EFSA in videoconference on 17 November 2022. The info‐session aimed at informing the country‐representatives on the new Avian influenza (AI) data collection based on the approach developed by the SIGMA project. EFSA is in charge of collating, validating, analysing, and summarising in an annual report the data resulting from the AI surveillance activities in poultry and wild birds carried out by the European Union (EU) Member States (MSs), upon mandate M‐2017‐0221, received from the European Commission. During the info‐session, benefits of the SIGMA approach were shown, and the EFSA data models were presented together with the tools provided by EFSA to support data providers and validators. The goal of the SIGMA project is the increase of standardisation, harmonisation and interoperability of data on animal diseases and domestic animal populations. The SIGMA approach entails the application of the SIGMA animal population data model, designed to collect information at establishment and subunit (farm/house) level, and of the laboratory data model, the latter based on Standard Sample Description version 2 (SSD2), but further tailored to the animal health needs. As a major novelty, countries will be asked to submit poultry population data at subunit level and positive and negative laboratory test results at sample level, both for domestic and wild birds. With this level of detail, EFSA will be able to perform more informative statistical analysis to be included in the annual report on AI. Thanks to the automation of the process (under development) EFSA aims at reducing the time between data submission and report publication, making the scientific outputs more timely and relevant. Moreover, un‐aggregated data can be more easily used for other risk assessment purposes by EFSA (e.g., welfare, biosecurity, etc.), avoiding double requests for data submission in the future. EFSA calls for the MSs’ collaboration during the pilot phase in 2023 as a crucial element for the success of the initiative.