Veterinary syndromic surveillance is a fast growing field. The automated analysis of large quantities of animal health data, in real or near-real time, allows veterinary epidemiologists to acquire high disease situation awareness, contributing not only to early disease detection, but also to epidemiological intelligence.
The basic assumption is that an available animal health data source allows us to monitor the number of specific events in time, events which are related to the health of the population being targeted, such as the number of clinical visits, laboratory tests ordered, etc. Once we can identify the events to be monitored, the statistical components of syndromic surveillance – monitoring the number of events in time, and detecting when abnormalities are observed – can be streamlined, and carried out using free software.

Fernanda is a veterinarian from Brazil.  She has been responsible for developing syndromic surveillance systems in Canada and in Sweden. On her current position, at the National Veterinary Institute in Sweden, she has developed a nationwide syndromic surveillance system covering multiple animal species, and based on three different sources of animal health data: clinical data, mortality data, and laboratory test requests. All statistical methods used in these systems have been made available in a free R package (https://github.com/nandadorea/vetsyn).

Participants are expected to have knowledge of basic statistics, but no previous experience with R or syndromic surveillance algorithms are necessary.

◊ Tuesday afternoon: Learning how to use R

◊ Wednesday morning: Syndromic classification using RapidMiner. Participants will be introduced to RapidMiner, which is helpful when text mining is needed (for instance if you need to identify the events to monitor in your data, by grouping certain specific clinical signs or laboratory tests into specific syndromes, such as reproductive, respiratory, etc). Please note that this will be a very brief introduction to the topic, as the focus of this course will be on the statistical methods.

◊ Wednesday afternoon: Retrospective evaluation of available data for syndromic surveillance (theoretical background and implementation in R).

◊ Thursday morning: Removing temporal effects in the data in order to prepare for monitoring (theoretical background and implementation in R).

◊ Thursday afternoon: Detecting abnormalities in the data (possible outbreak signals): control charts and the Holt Winters algorithm (theoretical background and implementation in R).

◊ Friday morning: Implementing an operational system using R: setting up the analysis to be automated, setting up automated email alerts, and creating an HTML interface for your syndromic surveillance system.

Uppsala Konsert & Kongress, Vaksala torg 1 (located on Uppsala city center, walking distance to several hotels and hostels). Coffee breaks and lunches will be included in the registration fee.

Participation in the whole programme: 400 EUR (includes teaching all days, teaching material, AGM, all lunches, coffee breaks and the course dinner on Thursday evening).

Accommodation - see below.

After pressing "Submit" button on the bottom of this form you'll get confirmation of registration by e.mail.

Wait to receive an invoice by e-mail and transfer the amount to the bank account indicated on the invoice with a clear indication that the payment is for NOSOVE-2015.

Payment for accommodation on arrival at the hotel.

You can find plenty hotels and also hostels (http://www.destinationuppsala.se/en/Stay/). Feel free to navigate through the links and find your preferred option, but below we provide some quick suggestions:

◊ Kungsängstorg - Vandrarhem Uppsala (http://vandrarhemuppsala.se/en/). Walking distance to the central station, probably the best balance of price, comfort and location.
◊ Uppsala City Stay (http://www.citystayuppsala.se/en/)
◊ Vandrarhem Uppsala Centralstation (http://hotellcentralstation.se/en/). For those comfortable with a more “hostel” approach, but right on the center of Uppsala.
◊ STF Uppsala Hostel Kvarntorget (http://www.hotellkvarntorget.se/?id=83591&mn1=6395). Not as close as Vandrarhem, but more options available for more comfort. Still hostel style, though.
◊ For those interested in more comfort, visit the hotels link and look for Radisson Hotel or Clarion Hotel, both also in the very center of Uppsala.