Assessment of Brazil's vesicular syndrome surveillance system: Profile of notifications and performance of the official veterinary service.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is an ailment that causes serious damage to the productive chain, and its control through vaccination is of utmost importance for its eradication. Brazil initiated the National Foot-and-Mouth Disease Surveillance Program (PNEFA) with the aim of making the country FMD-free by 2026. As part of the program, notifications of vesicular lesions became mandatory for the Official Veterinary Service (OVS), which is responsible for verifying them. Due to its size, border areas with countries that do not have FMD-free status pose a risk to Brazil and require greater attention. This study described the profile of notifications of suspected outbreaks of vesicular syndrome in Brazil and analyzed the performance of the surveillance system. The results showed 7134 registered notifications of suspected vesicular syndrome outbreaks from 2018 to 2022, with 2022 having the highest number (n = 2343 or 32.85 %). The species that generated the most notifications were swine (90.99 %), cattle and buffaloes (7.54 %), goats and sheep (1.44 %), and others (0.03 %). The sources of notification were "Veterinary medicine professionals" (61.82 %), "Owners or employees" (13.66 %), "Third parties" (8.90 %), "OVS" (7.20 %), and "others" (2.66 %). 41.69 % of notifications originated from non-border municipalities, and 58.32 % from border areas. Only the state of Paraná account for 51.73 % of the total notifications. This state also accounted for 66.70 % of the 32.47 % of notifications with a final diagnosis of "absence of clinically compatible signs or susceptible animals", indicating a certain lack of knowledge in the area, leading to unnecessary notifications and system overload. The performance of the OVS was evaluated based on the service response time from notification registration trough Logistic and Negative binomial regressions. A total of 27.83 % of notifications did not meet the Brazilian legally specified time, and the zone related to the state of Parana needs improvements in performance. The presence and peaks of Senecavirus A cases may have influenced an increased number of swine notifications and led to a decrease in OVS response time. The results demonstrate better performance of surveillance in border areas. Given the vast territory of Brazil, it is not expected that 100 % of responses occur within the legal timeframe, however, the performance of the surveillance system proved to be adequate, with 86 % complied to the legislation. The performance indicators could be used as a monitoring tool, along with indicators to demonstrate system overload. Continued education actions are crucial for strengthening PNEFA.

Responsible ownership and health education can reduce the time of sporotrichosis treatment in domestic cats.

Sporotrichosis is a widespread fungal infection that affects skin and subcutaneous tissues in humans and animals. In cats, it is displayed as nodules, ulcers and lesions on the nasal and respiratory mucosa. Antifungal treatment of cats is crucial but many cases are difficult, thus resulting in discontinue of the treatment, with disastrous consequences for the animal, encouraging contamination of the environment, other animals and people. The effects of responsible ownership education and health education for owners of cats with feline sporotrichosis as well as the interval between veterinary consultations on treatment outcomes for three groups of owners and their pet cats were evaluated in this study. The responsible ownership education and health education strategies consisted in videos in easy and accessible language for people with any level of education and were presented during consultations for two of the three groups included. The time between appointments was two weeks for two of the groups, and four weeks for one of the groups. The median of treatment time for the group without educational activities was 138 days, while for the other two groups it was 77.5 days and 86 days. It was found a significative reduction in the treatment time in the groups exposed to Responsible ownership education videos. There was no contamination of those responsible for home treatment, and the interval between monthly appointments did not impact on cure or death rates compared to the interval between fortnightly appointments. All these results can be applied to feline sporotrichoses treatment protocols increasing the owners treatment adherence and reducing either, the treatment discontinuation and the treatment costs and helps to control zoonotic sporotrichosis. The importance of attractive and comprehensible educational strategies as part of the feline sporotrichosis treatment protocol for the promotion of one health was highlighted.